Nobody Said It Was Easy
by teh-den
Summary: Artie wants to be the man Tina deserves, but feels like he's never enough. After thinking of their past, he believes the only way to make her happy is to let her go. Artie's POV. Spoilers for Season 1 and Season 2.
1. Failures

A/N: I had this idea in my head when I first heard about the Artie/Tina/Mike news and I posted the idea on my tumblr. A few people expressed interest so I decided to give it a go. It's a lot more intricate and longer than I expected but I enjoy writing and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Disclaimer: I, nor any of the people I know, don't own nor am I affiliated with Glee and its characters. We're all very sad about it. I also don't own the Coldplay song after which I titled this story.

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I really don't know what I did to get so lucky. Sure, New Directions didn't place at Regionals but Glee Club was going to go on for at least another year. This meant another whole year spending time with the friends I never would have expected to have if it wasn't for our shared love of performing. But even before the school year starts, there was an entire summer to lounge around at home, mess around the town and spend time with all of my friends and especially my _girlfriend_, Tina.

She's the main reason why I believe I'm so lucky. Before her, I never would have thought a girl would ever like me back, much less go out with me. She's just amazing. Seriously, she's the first girl to see me past my chair and I'll always be grateful to her for that. Everyone else is sort of extra politically correct or extra nice when I'm around. I usually get so irritated with people I'm not particularly close with offering to push me around or help me in and out of my chair. Get it right people. I'm a perfectly independent, healthy paraplegic, not a useless pathetic sack of flesh. But Tina gets it because she's awesome like that. She just treats me like a human, instead of a talking chair. She accepts me for what… who I am. I wish I could say I've always done the same for her.

When she told me the truth about her stutter, I let her down. I was the first person she opened up to and what did I do? I shut her out and left her alone. She wanted to stop pushing people away and that is precisely what I did to her. I heard her calling out for me but for the first time, I ignored her cries. The moment I wheeled away, I knew that was the last time I'd do anything like that to her. She thinks that the reason why I don't like talking about that incident so much is because she thinks I'll never forgive her. But really, I'll never forgive myself. I wish I could take back how I acted, but I'm not sure if what I said was so wrong. It was the truth after all, she could be normal and I couldn't. When we sang Proud Mary together, all of us in wheelchairs, the connection, even though I was the only one now with a disability, Tina and I shared was there. I was still too hurt to forgive her or start dating again, but I knew I needed her in my life. In spite of our hurt feelings, Tina, being the incredible person she is, let me back into her life.

Tina returned in all of her blue highlighted and safety pinned beauty. Why did I ever tell her that she should change her look? Oh right, I'm an idiot. I guess with my genius, I figured since she could be normal, she should dress like a normal girl. Due to my incredible lapse of judgment, I hadn't even given thought to what Tina wanted to dress like, whether or not she wanted normal. Tina knocked some sense back into me with her righteous blade of equality. Looking back on it, I think I deserved a lot more punishment for making those crude and sexist comments to one of the most important women in my life. Why do I always do these things to her? She has never tried to change me into someone I don't want to be. It made me smile whenever she compliments my sweater vests or suspenders. Tina has given me (and my wardrobe) respect and I was too much of a jerk to give that back.

With some help from Mr. Schue and Madonna, I got over myself and gave Tina the apology she deserved. I told her I'd get down on one knee if I could. She thought that I didn't like her enough to do so. She couldn't be more wrong. When I'm with her she makes me feel like I could do anything. But I mess so often that I make myself feel like I can't. Even though I make mistakes, she forgives me and I would do anything for her because she's been everything to me. I knew that since before the first time she kissed me. After the second time, I swore to try to be everything she needs. And yet, I keep messing up. I try not to be so mean, but sometimes when things get out of hand I overreact.

I remember when she tried to make my dancing dreams come true and it ended up being a total fiasco. It was my turn to open up to her and she was supportive. She helped me stand for the first time in years and looked so happy when I looked down at her smiling face. That was the part that made me happy the most, being able to look at her from what would have been my proper height. I fully expected a comment about me being taller than her for once, but I guess it got lost in the craziness that happened shortly after. Before either of us knew it, my dreams and myself came crashing down. And I blamed her. I shouted at her. I didn't mean to… I just… I couldn't let her see me like that. I couldn't let her see me the way other people like the jocks or the cheerios see me. She always says that she admires me for my courage, for going through what I've been through. I yelled at her because at that moment I wasn't her hero. Not her prince charming. Not anything. I was just a crying useless cripple on the floor. I had to get her out somehow and that was the first thing that popped into my head. And I hate that.

The crazy thing was Tina apologized first. What in the world could she be possibly sorry for? Trying to make me happy? Being supportive of my dreams? I stopped her before she could go on and apologized for what seems like the billionth time. And just like that, she forgave me, told me to keep dreaming and kissed me. I really am in denial about the hopelessness of my situation. I keep trying to be the man she needs and deserves but I fail miserably too many times to count.

So when it was time to perform the number we'd been working on for Glee, I had to tell her that she should dance with someone else. I told her that I was okay with it, with not being able to do certain things like dance, dunk a basketball or kill a lion. I told her that I had to focus on making my other dreams come true like, although I didn't tell her this, being the best man I can for her. I wanted her to perform to her full potential with someone who could match every step and yet she still wanted to dance with me. We still performed together technically, I sang while she danced with Mike Chang. I had to admit, they looked good together and she was simply radiant. It killed me to know that the reason she was smiling so brightly was because, with Mike, she could move in ways that she could never do with me.

A little while later, I had overheard Mercedes and Quinn talking about how upset Tina looked during the first part of my solo. That sort of made me feel better, which in turn made me feel worse. What kind of guy takes pleasure in hearing that the girl he loves was sad? A horrible one. I really needed to step it up with her. All the drama in our relationship so far has been her trying to break down our walls, me pushing her away and me realizing what a completely idiotic jerk I was and apologizing. All I have ever wanted and needed to be was a better man for her.


	2. Success

A/N: Thanks to those who have checked this story out and extra thanks to those who reviewed. It's a huge relief getting my first chapter out and I'm totally psyched to have y'all read the rest.

Disclaimer: Still don't own Glee. Still sad.

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To be honest, defending Tina's clothing choices and her accused allegiance with certain members of the undead was not the way I imagined wheeling into the foray becoming good boyfriend material. However, she needed someone to support her and I was there for her… along with the rest of Glee Club and even Mr. Schue. I remember that all I could say, when she was sitting there in her jeans and sweatshirt, was that it was weird. Mr. Schue came up with the idea of her getting a new look and everyone had something to contribute. And I don't know why I just sat there. Was it because I couldn't think of anything to say? Do I still think she should wear tighter fitting clothing? God, I hope not. Or is it because I couldn't imagine her any other way? I like to think it's the last one. Imagining her in any other type of clothes was like imagining a celibate Puck or a nice Santana. It just didn't make sense in my head to suggest a new look when Tina's look was so undeniably Tina.

My Tina always dressed the way she wanted and no one else should be able to take away her freedom of expression. Just when I had my mind made up to tell her all of that, Rachel came in and told us about Vocal Adrenaline's newest routine. My chance to stand up for Tina in front of everyone was gone as everyone's attention turned from her legitimate problem to something about red lace and Christmas lights. Before I know it, we were supposed to do a Lady Gaga number for this week's assignment. I always figured that we could beat them at Regionals by playing our own game. So now we had to do a Lady Gaga number because Vocal Adrenaline did one? Doesn't that remind anyone of what happened at Sectionals? Sure, we're not stealing a song, but we're copying an idea. Even though we came out on top after Sectionals, I didn't want to end up ramming myself into a wall again and having a replay of that panicked green room meeting. Oh well, it was supposed to help Tina find a new look. If only I could figure out a way to convince Principal Figgins that there was nothing wrong with the way Tina dresses. Anyone who knew her knew that she hates those Twilight vampires and the only werewolf she loves is Remus Lupin.

Lost in thought over mythical creatures and Tina's threatened wardrobe, I methodically went through Glee practice. As I planned out my choreography to go along with everyone else's, I went over all of the things I wanted to say to her before. Practice ended sooner than I expected and I turned to Tina ready to make my declaration of support, but she was already halfway out the door before she saw me looking for her. Kurt and Mercedes told her to meet them in the parking lot. They gave me a wave and were gone in a flash. She walked towards me and excitedly told me that she was going over to Kurt's with Mercedes to work on their costumes.

The thrill of getting out of those jeans and plain gray sweatshirt and into something more interesting was beaming out of her. I told her to have fun right before I tugged on her arm just a little bit. It took a few seconds for her to realize that I wanted to be face to face with her. So she knelt down and for the first time ever, I initiated a kiss. After we parted, I told her that I wanted her to know that no matter what, she was beautiful, inside and out. Then, with my gloved hand lingering on her cheek, I pulled her in for another kiss. She smiled at me and we said our goodbyes. It was an amazing feeling to be the initiator for once, despite a tiny instance of awkwardness.

I couldn't stop myself from thinking that if I weren't in this chair, there wouldn't have been that awkwardness of getting her down to my level. It wouldn't have been a dirty, rough glove on her cheek, but rather the skin of my palm. I sighed to myself as I wheeled out of the choir room knowing that Tina deserves more than awkwardly positioned kisses and dirty gloves. However, there wasn't anything I could do about it, because this wheelchair thing is kind of forever. Just when I thought things couldn't look up, now Finn has cornered me and talked me into putting on platform shoes, tight pants, make-up and a wig. Whatever, at least I got to play a badass electric guitar.

When I wasn't a part of the KISS army, I was a Little Monster right along with the girls and Kurt. After I showed up at Kurt's house after my rehearsals to help them with costumes, I surprised Tina, Kurt and Mercedes with my mad glittering skills. I didn't get to see Finn, something about watching a game with Mr. Hummel, Kurt didn't seem like he wanted to talk about it. Admittedly, I needed help with my own costume and Kurt said he had a pair of extra platforms I could use. After seeing his shoes, I realized I didn't have it so bad, at least I didn't have to walk in them. Watching Tina out of the corner of my eye as I held the bubbles tight so she could glue them together properly was a joy I don't intend on taking for granted. Her silent concentration and attention to detail was only disturbed with a sarcastic comment about the argument Kurt and Mercedes were having over what color wigs they should rock. After a long night of Gaga, Little Monsters and drinking Monster, seeing all of us in our costumes was a pretty awesome sight. How often do you see a room with one Ace Frehley and three Lady Gagas? Later that night, I encouraged Tina to help choreograph the routine and teach the moves to the rest of the girls and Kurt, since she did so well the week before. Watching them rehearse was a blast especially because it gave Tina a chance to come out of her shell and be a leader. I wonder if she knows how good she is because even I was doing the routine while watching them kick the pants off of Bad Romance.

The next couple of days at school were kind of tough. Kurt told me about those two Neanderthals Karofsky and Azimio harassed him and Tina, but Kurt was able to handle the situation admirably. I was really grateful that he was there for her, but I was hit yet again with another wave of guilt. It was just another time Tina needed me to be there and I couldn't deliver. However, I did catch up with those two meatheads later and ended up in a dumpster for wearing weird clothes, being in a wheelchair, calling them certain names, threatening them for hurting Tina and running over their feet. They caught me as I came in for a second round and I hurt my arm while I fell into the foul-smelling dumpster.

It wasn't so bad because after a few minutes, I saw a familiar face peeking out from the top. Puck of all people helped me out saying that fellow badass rock stars need to have each other's backs, but told me that if I ever repeated when he said to anyone else, he could throw me back in like a Donkey Kong barrel. He also added that I was seriously lucky that Karofsky and Azimio didn't go God of War on my ass and that Puckzilla was there to save it. He kept on talking about video games, listing characters he could beat up in real life no problem. I wasn't really paying attention, but the idea of fictional characters coming into reality was intriguing and gave me an idea. I thanked Puck for his help and I left to call Tina right away. We then spent the entire night discussing her imaginary vampire heritage and just how we could get Figgins to fear them.

Seeing Tina the next day was one of the highlights of my life. She walked in looking beautiful in the clothes she belongs in, exuding confidence with every stride. I applauded her as loud as I could when she was done telling the club how she stood up for herself. I was so proud and so was everyone else. That whole day was incredible. The entire Glee Club stood up to the jocks. Tina became Tina again. It meant so much to me that I had a hand in Tina's happiness. I helped her find joy. Every single minute of those late nights gluing bubbles together, learning Lady Gaga dances and plotting minor blackmail worthy of the undead was worth seeing her absolutely shine and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. After Glee, she climbed into my lap to give me a hug and a kiss in thanks. I told her that she didn't have to thank me, that seeing her like this was more than enough but the hugs and kisses were still appreciated. For once, I did something right.


	3. Falling Then Flying

A/N: This is the last chapter of Season 1 moments and soon we're going to see the relationship in present time, so please hang in there with me!

Disclaimer: Glee sure as hell ain't mine

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The time we had before Regionals flew by faster than the Millennium Falcon. There was a bump in the road where New Directions was in a bit of a funk. Our rivals from Carmel High decided to freak us out with an admittedly fantastic routine. We were already feeling pretty terrible and to top it off, Vocal Adrenaline decided to deface our choir room. I'm sure we could've handled the psych out performance fairly well, but to toilet paper our choir room was hitting below the belt. Like Tina said, this place was like our home. What made it worse was the Jesse was a part of it. He was their leader. He had the nerve to basically destroy the group he was once a member of. Whatever, apart from Rachel, none of us liked him very much. Then he decided to do something to make it so even Rachel hated him too by egging her. None of us were going to take any more abuse from Vocal Adrenaline so me and the guys were about to do something drastic before Mr. Schue stopped us. Carmel High was invited back to McKinley and we gave them a taste of their own medicine. It was one of my favorite performances because it was so fun to groove with the music and dance. Tina and I even did a few body rolls together. We tore the roof of that 'muthasucka' (on a side note, who the hell would've thought Kurt could sing that low?) and successfully served Vocal Adrenaline show choir style.

Little, did I know that bump in the road was just the beginning of what was going to be the biggest rollercoaster that Glee Club would go through. After learning that Sue would be a judge, all of us were dumbfounded and believed that Glee was pretty much over. Despite how much the others have changed and enjoyed Glee, I'm pretty sure that it meant a lot more to Rachel, Mercedes, Kurt, Tina and I. We were the ones who have been there since the beginning.

So when we all met up at Mr. Schue's house to choose songs, I was really surprised that everyone was really hurting over this. Looking around the room at the tearing faces was excruciating, but none more so than the girl sitting in the couch across the room. I hate seeing Tina cry. I hate that I couldn't just go to her and wipe away her tears because there's no room to maneuver my chair between the couch and the coffee table. I wish I could've tell her that she's always been special and that even if this were all to end in a week, I would still be there for her and I would be bringing as many of our friends as I could. Those wishes died in my throat as I felt the tears rushing to escape and I didn't think that I could handle saying anything for a long while. The rest of the night was a blur and I don't really remember much from it besides hugging Tina as tight as I could when we separated for the night. I still wonder if she understood all the things I tried to say in that embrace but was too upset to say them out loud.

We didn't win. We didn't even place. Thus, one of the best things that ever happened to me was about to end. New Directions couldn't end without doing on last thing for the man who made it all possible. We all loved Mr. Schue for giving us a space to do what we love, for sharing that with everyone and especially for helping us find ourselves. It was Finn's idea to tell Mr. Schue how Glee changed each of us. The biggest change in me was that I'd never been in love before. I know that Tina and I are still young, but there's just something about us that sets us apart from every other pair of high school sweethearts. Since, I hadn't actually discussed any of this with Tina yet, I decided to just say that I had never kissed a girl before. When I said that, I caught Tina's eye and we shared a small smile, bracing ourselves for what we thought was the last New Directions performance. When our duet came up in the song, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of regret that we didn't have any more chances to show our friends how perfect we sound together. The song ended and everyone was a beautiful mess. I waited for Tina so we could leave together to go home and end up on her couch to fall asleep while watching a movie. The whole Regionals experience was so physically and emotionally exhausting that it was nice for us to hold onto something we both knew wasn't going to go anywhere. I saw that our legs were intertwined and I knew better than to say out loud that I wish I could feel it. Much to my surprise, Tina was looking there too and said it for me, before stretching out a yawn. Seeing her pull me closer in her sleep with my tired eyes was the last thing I remember from that night.

As hard as it may be to believe, New Directions wasn't done crying yet. Only this time, they were tears of joy. We were all going to be together for at least one more year and the next school year could only bring us even closer to each other and closer to victory as we were all determined to reach Nationals. While Mr. Schue and Puck sang to the group, I reached out for Tina's hand and she held it, and I realize dreams really do come true. Looking at our hands, feeling her skin against mine, I don't have to be jealous of blue birds because she already makes me feel like I can fly. I still don't really think I deserve to, but I'll do whatever it takes for her to feel the same way.


	4. The Little Things

A/N: Hey y'all. I'm having a bit of writer's block at the moment. But don't worry, updates shan't be delayed. We're finally stepping into the non-canon part of my fic and I hope it's alright.

Disclaimer: Nope. No Glee for me.

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I think that's enough reminiscing for now and I'll return my attention to the beautiful woman wailing away Blitzkrieg Bop (Hard Level) on Rock Band. Tina blazes through the solo with no sweat and all I can think is 'Damn, this girl is awesome.' We usually play together, but I was getting tired and a little motion sick from staring at the screen for way too long. I heaved myself onto the couch in my living room and couldn't help the flopping feeling I got in my stomach when she looked over her should to smirk at me for getting the new high score. She saved her score under TINA-CC!, turned the game off and put down the guitar.

"Congrats Tee, now let me give you your grand prize," I said nodding her over, holding my arms out only to have her fill them within seconds. I kissed her and felt her smiling against my lips before she deepened our connection. As amazing as this felt and how it great it was that she made my mind go pretty blank, I realize that I can never leave a good thing alone. It really does feel like it's too good to be true, her being here with me. Actually, if we're being technical, she's sort of on top of me. May I just say the most amazing part of that sentence is "me"? Not that I think I'm amazing, but it's more disbelief that she's with me. After we parted for air, I could feel her breath intermingling with mine and I placed one more kiss on her lips before burying my face in her long black, highlighted hair. She placed her arms around my neck to hold herself steady as I wrapped mine around her waist to pull her closer.

"Wow. I should come here more often so I can kick your ass, if that's what I get for getting a high score," she said, softly giggling and resting her head on top of mine. I smiled into her neck but don't say anything. If anyone should be grateful for this type of physical contact, it certainly shouldn't be her. She's smart, talented, beautiful and a hell of a Rock Band player. Tina could get any guy she wants but for some reason, she wants nerdy, wheelchair bound, occasionally an idiotic jerk, Artie Abrams. I pull her almost impossibly closer, so I can feel her as much as I can to make sure this is real.

"What's going on here?"

"Nothing. I'm fine," I mumbled into her neck.

"You sure?" Tina asked, pulling back to brush my hair aside so she could look in my eyes. "You seem kinda weird."

"You're weird."

"Artie." She unwrapped her arms from around my neck to place her hands on my shoulders. I knew she wouldn't let my less-than-brilliant comeback slide for a second.

"Really Tee. I'm fine," I said softly, moving her hands with mine from my shoulders to between us. We both looked at our intertwined fingers for a moment before I continued. "I was just thinking about stuff."

"Stuff?"

"Y'know… us."

"What kind of stuff about us?" Asked Tina as she started to massage my hands. She started to do that on one day when I forgot to bring my gloves to school because I was in a rush. With my luck, that was also the day a small stick decided to get stuck in my wheel and stab me in the palm. When I asked her for a bandage, she gave me one, and right after I put it on, she started to rub my hands with so much attention and care that I was rendered speechless. The notion and the memories of her hand massages just brought me back to why we were even having this conversation. I hadn't even thought about whether or not her hands were aching from hours of video games and yet, here she was giving me a massage when I quit playing an hour before she did. I don't even think she realizes she's doing it.

"Tee, stop."

"Stop...?" I took my hands out of hers. "But I thought you liked it when I did that."

"I did… I do, but…" I couldn't think of the words to explain how much it meant to me she did that, just like how I couldn't think of anything I did that would mean the same thing for her. "It's just…" I hung my head because I didn't want to look her in the eyes anymore.

"It's just…?" She asked quietly. By now she had kept her hands to herself and I could see her fiddling with the hem of her t-shirt.

"Nothing. Forget I said anything." I tried to move out from under her, but being paralyzed, I was less than successful.

"Seriously, Artie. I thought we said we'd be honest with each other," said Tina, firmly staying in my lap and preventing me from moving.

"I know." I really did know. Our relationship was difficult enough as it is without all of the drama that comes along with dishonesty. "But I'm just not ready to talk about it yet okay? So can we just drop it? Please?" Talking about it right now would be stupid because I knew that it would end with her crying due to my inability to think before I speak. A fight is not what we need right now, especially since just a few minutes ago was so damn perfect.

After a little while, Tina uttered a single "Okay," before getting off my lap to sit next to me on the couch. I reached out for her hand as a peace offering and thankfully she took it and leaned against my side.

"I'm sorry," I said. God, I did my best to avoid saying something hurtful and I still don't think that's good enough.

"Don't be. If you're not ready, you're not ready." She sounded a little hurt and each word added an incredible weight in my chest. "I just don't want to push you away."

"Tee, you could never push me away," because at the rate I'm going, I'll do it first. I tried to placate the tension with tracing small circles with my rough calloused thumb on the smooth skin of her hand. "And I'm still sorry… Don't you just wish I could just shut up sometimes?"

"All the time." She replied with a slight laugh. I'm so glad she picked up on that tiny instance of humor.

"I'm offended," I squawked in mock indignation, yanking my hand from hers.

"Shut up because you should be," she said as she whacked my side.

"I can't believe you just hit me!"

"I can't believe you just talked when we both clearly think you should just stay quiet."

I made a face and stuck my tongue out at her.

"Oh am I getting the silent treatment now?"

I nodded.

"Good, since you've been so stubborn about trying it, I'm going to go to get some ice cream and order BOTH of us green tea flavored."

"Ice cream shouldn't be green!"

"What about mint or pistachio? What about not talking anymore?"

"We both know that I don't like mint and think that nuts shouldn't be ice creams and that I can't shut up for long."

She sighed, "When you're right, you're right." I watched her from the couch as she got up to grab her jacket and headed for the door. "Well are you coming or not?"

"How long have you known me? Woman, you know I never turn down ice cream." I replied, lifting myself off the couch and onto my chair. I caught her shaking her head a little with a small smile before making sure my body was set right in my wheelchair. That shake of the head makes me wonder if I did something wrong, but I don't think I did so I tucked it away in the 'Worry About Later' file in my head. I wheeled right out the door she was holding open for me.

"You don't have to open the door for me all the time y'know?"

"I know, but I want to."

"Alright, if you say so." It's not that I don't appreciate the gesture, but it's not like I can't do it on my own or be the one to open it for her for once, like how guys are supposed to. Well, I figured that it was better than having the door slam in my face because someone didn't notice me… or worse, did notice me and slammed it on purpose. People don't really know how to react when they see someone like me rolling up to a door they're walking towards. Some change their pace so they could hold the door for me. Some rush to get in so they don't have to deal with me. Some even stop entirely. It can get a little irksome having people pretty much freak out over as little as something as me trying to get through a door. I just want to be like everyone else and get in and not have it be an event. Pushing my thoughts of irritable moments to the back of my mind, I realized Tina just wants to open the door to make life easier for me. It's sort of true. It is easier to just wheel through instead of maneuvering this way and that in order to keep the door open and make sure I'm out of the way. But mentally, it kind of makes me feel a little helpless. It would be a hassle if I opened doors all the time and we shouldn't have to deal with it. But what if I want to deal with it? I sighed a little, but Tina didn't notice. Thank God, because as we were making our way, I didn't want to ruin our appetites. How is it that I can complicate something as simple as that? Why am I so damn frustrating? Honestly, I have no idea. All I know is that ice cream sounds really good right now. And Tina? Well, she always thinks ice cream sounds good. Or should it be 'tastes good'?


	5. Shortcomings

A/N: Writer's block finally gone! I must say that it's taking a while for Artie to let Tina go, but I just wanted them to have some happy moments before everything falls apart. So expect a few more happy chapters from me. On another note, I really appreciate all of you who have been reading 3

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She's focused on choosing which song we should listen to next on my iPod. It's really our iPod since more than half of the songs are now there because she put them in. We each have an earpiece as we were setting off to the local ice cream shop, We All Scream. It hadn't been open for long, but it had all the classic flavors and plus some really weird ones that I, as Tina pointed out earlier, had been reluctant to try. The night was warm and it was only a few blocks away, so we decided to save gas and get there the old-fashioned way. She was scrolling through our iPod with her left hand and had her right draped across the width of my shoulders. Having settled on Paramore, she put our iPod away for the time being and focused her attention on me. We shared a smile and I gave her a corny wink to make her laugh. It worked and I felt her right hand rubbing the back of my neck in appreciation. The feeling of her there was great, but it caused me to remember the first time her hand was in mine. The perfect memory sent a bitter feeling through my veins. Yet another thing I can add to the list entitled 'Things That Tina Cohen-Chang Deserves But Artie Abrams Can't Deliver.' If she were with any other guy, maybe someone like Mike Chang, she could be walking hand in hand to the ice cream shop. The image of the two of them in my mind left a sour taste in my mouth.

"Ice cream!" Tina screamed in excitement and in honor of the shop's name. The sour taste in my mouth was soon forgotten and I tried my first taste of green tea ice cream. I've never really had tea because I'm more of a coffee person. But whenever my family and I go visit them, I have had tea with my grandparents while we played bingo. I think it was Earl Grey and it was pretty good with a lot of milk and sugar. However, it had nothing on this ice cream Tina bought us. As we left the shop, with me holding the cones and she pushed me towards our new destination, the park. I tried to pay her back, but she insisted.

"No Artie. You bought me those arm warmers last week."

"So? You're my girlfriend and boyfriends are supposed to buy the stuff. Isn't that what the normal kids do in like movies?"

"Since when have we been normal? And this isn't a movie. I'd like to keep things as equal as possible in this relationship," stated Tina firmly. "Y'know, like we talked about."

"I know… I just forget sometimes." We had talked about this a lot and I agreed wholeheartedly. Yet, here I am again, screwing up a perfectly good moment. She found our usual grassy spot and sat down on the grass. I handed her our melting frozen treats, took my gloves off and moved myself down next to her. She handed me mine, but before we started eating, I had to try and to fix what I broke. "I'm sorry. I know I can be an idiot sometimes and I don't wanna be that guy, but I mess up and I'm trying…"

"It's okay. How about we forget the whole thing and use this occasion to toast to equality?" Tina asked me holding up her cone to mine.

"And you?"

"Why me?"

"Because you're a righteous feminist who introduced me to the wonders of green tea ice cream. Seriously, Tee. This is freaking delicious." This got her laughing and I quickly join her in raising our ice cream cones to the heavens."

"To equality!" Tina took a lick.

"To you!" I took a lick. And since we're both half Jewish musical nerds, we can't help but throw in a 'LA CHAIM!' or two. After our impromptu toast, we happily ate our ice creams, but not without incident.

More than once I caught her just in the nick of time trying to smudge some ice cream on my face. Of course, that called for retaliation and we both ended up with ice cream on typically ice cream free zones on our faces. We helped clean each other off, not just with napkins I might add. Tired from our little argument, ice cream toast, eating, fighting and cleaning of said ice cream, I laid down to stare up at the stars and she followed suit. My head rested on the grassy surface and hers rested on my chest with her body curling into my side.

"I can hear your heart."

"What does it say?"

"I dunno. I don't speak heart."

"Me neither."

"One more thing we have in common..." She mumbled into my chest. I felt her voice vibrate against me and I took that moment to run my hand up and down her arm. We lay there like that in the comfortable silence for nearly an hour before I thought about moving, so I lifted my head a little to check on things. I saw that she had wrapped one of my legs around one of mine and I had no idea how long it had been like that. She looked at me with worried eyes when I cleared my throat. As much as I hated to, I had to move. If it wasn't for my condition, I would have stayed like that with her for the whole night.

However, being paralyzed, I'm susceptible to pressure sores and those are more likely to happen when I'm not cushioned properly. Having a beautiful girl practically on top of me while lying down on the hard, grass covered earth was not conducive to my personal physical health. Tina nodded at me, scooting to the side as I lifted myself onto my elbows. With a sigh, I lifted the top half of my body up, resting my back against my chair. I figured it was better to be safe than sorry and started to concentrate on massaging and stretching my left leg as I felt Tina's presence in front of me. It's been a while since I did this and I guessed that now was a good time as any. I looked up only to see her copying the movements I was making on my other leg. She was too concentrated on doing her best to see another instance of heartbreak on my face.

This was supposed to be a romantic night out with ice cream and star gazing. Now it's turned into an impromptu semi-physical therapy session. She doesn't need to deal with this. She needs someone who can lay on the grass with her for hours and only need to get up in order to help her up and take her somewhere else romantic. But no. She has me. I know that we both love B-rated horror movies, classic rock and Harry Potter; are ignorant of how to speak heart and how to build a card castle more than two tiers tall; and have a million other random things in common. I just can't ignore the growing amount of times I hurt her or ruined a perfect moment. She deserves someone more than me. Inexplicably, my mind's eye focuses on an image of her dancing with Mike Chang.

I don't know why I thought of Mike so easily with her. Well, logically, he does make sense. Finn is with Rachel. Matt, well he doesn't really talk so I don't know him that well. Kurt's gay. And Puck is a manwhore. Leaving Mike Chang as the only logical choice of Glee guys I can picture with Tina. He is pretty cool, now that I think of it. He's popular, an athlete, smart, tall, a member of New Directions which makes him a singer, and a dancer. I've heard some girls talking about how attractive he was and I suppose I can see it.. sort of. The more I thought about him, the more I kept comparing myself to him, and the more I kept coming up short.

"You're acting really weird today. What's up?" Tina asked me, moving her hands in a circular motion along my shin. I know we wanted to be honest in our relationship, but there was no way I was telling her that I thought Mike Chang was a better guy for her. This was the second time I had to stop myself from telling the whole truth today. I knew it was going to come back and haunt me later, but I can't tell her. Not right now.

"Nothing." I replied softly, my hands on my legs inching towards hers. Although, I couldn't feel it, there were no words to describe what it meant to me that she's touching me like this. Usually, people don't even want to talk about my legs, much less massage them. Yet here she was, massaging me for the second time today. "You shouldn't have to deal with this."

"You're right." Of all the things she could've said, I did not expect that. "If we were in a perfect world, you shouldn't have to deal with it either. But you do…" She took my hand in hers, "… so I do too."

"But I don't have a choice. This is my life."

"And I want to be a part of it."

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into," I replied, shrugging her hands off me and pushing myself up off of the ground and into my chair. I don't want her to deal with all of the tedious routines I have to keep up in order to stay relatively healthy. She doesn't need to have dates interrupted because I have to check for pressure sores or make a scheduled bathroom break or get random painful spasms in my back.

"No, I don't." She replies softly, obviously hurt from the way I left her alone on the grass. But she seemed to be gathering strength from her sitting position. I soon found her kneeling in front of me, much like she did a when I asked her to dance without me. "And I want to know, if you could just tell me. But recently, when I asked you something all you've been doing was avoiding the subject."

"Because I'm not ready to talk about it, remember?" I tell her, shoving my gloves back on my hands. "Just give me some time and maybe then I'll be ready. But not now." She looked at me with a sad expression on her face. She looked down to the ground for a moment, hugging herself and shook her head. I reached out to her, but she pulled away from my touch. "This isn't about me not trusting you. I don't want to lie to you and if we talk about it now, I probably will. But I promise, we'll talk about this later, okay? I'm sorry for not being ready. Again."

"Alright," replied Tina, standing up. "Promise?" She asked me, pinky held out. In true Brittany and Santana fashion, I link mine with hers.

"Promise," I said crossing my heart with my other hand in a very Carl from Up-esque manner. I even added a kiss to her knuckles with as much sincerity as I can muster.

"Can we just go back to your house now and watch a movie or something?" She asked me, walking a head of me slightly in order to throw away the napkins we destroyed in our ice cream battle. I'm not going to lie. Being in a wheelchair does have some perks, like being eye-level with certain body parts of the female population.

"Girl, with an ass that fine, we can do whatever you like," I tell her in a deeper voice while watching her turn around and come face to face with me.

"Artie, if anyone else said that to me…"

"… I'd run them over with the chair. No one says stuff like that to my woman and gets away with it." I saw her inch closer to my face and expecting a kiss, I close my eyes only to open them again to see a very blurry Tina. She stole my glasses and from the hazy look of things, she wasn't going to give them back easily.

"Didn't I tell you before that my eyes are up here? So until you learn to look at my face, you don't get these back." I saw a black speck, which I guess were my glasses, disappear in Tina's blurry jacket.

"Can you push me at least? Unless you wanna be my Seeing Eye Tina, it'll be a while before we're both on my couch watching Coming Home. But seeing as you haven't completed the Seeing Eye Tina course…"

"Who said we're watching Coming Home?" She asked me, already behind the chair, making our trek back to my place.

"I did."

"Again, who said we're watching Coming Home?"

"Tee, you just effectively blinded a kid in a wheelchair. I think that entitles me to movie selecting privileges."

"What if I refuse to play your petty game Abrams?"

"I'll get Rachel and her two gay dads to sue you and they'll get the ALUC…"

"It's the ACLU, idiot, and you and I both know that you'd never go to Rachel for non-Glee related help." She prodded me lightly in the back of the head.

"Crap. You got me there. Okay. You win," I said in defeat, tossing my hands in the air for surrender

"At what?

"Rock Band. My petty game. Life. Need I go on?"

"Yes." Now she's just gloating, but she gave back my glasses anyway.

"You also win at Artie Abrams' Game of Love!" I turned my head around to flash her a smile of my pearly whites and she just laughs at me. Her laugh makes me laugh and soon we're both cracking up pretty badly.

"Okay, maybe you shouldn't have gone on," breathed Tina once her laughter subsided, leaning over to say it in my ear.

"You asked for it." I smirked and continued, raising my eyebrow, "And I'm just saying, maybe you shouldn't complain that I can go on and on."

"Ignoring you now."


	6. Comfortable

A/N: Just in case any of you wanna know, this chapter also contains spoilers for Coming Home. To be perfectly honest, after reading the Artina spoilers, I watched it like half a dozen time. I also may or may not have spent an evening similar to the one happening in this chapter. But sadly, I didn't have an Artie or Tina to spend it with. Anyways, enough rambling, more Artina fluff coming your way...

* * *

We reached my house in what felt like no time since she brought out the iPod again and outfitted us with an ear bud apiece again. I took the iPod from her saying that she picked the songs before and now it was my turn to choose our travel music. We're both singing pretty loudly along Weezer's Buddy Holly as we reach my house. Once we got in, she playfully shoved me and sent me flying through the hall. As per our routine, I'm sent to the kitchen for snack duty.

"Fine. We can watch Coming Home. Again. For the third time this week." Tina shouted miserably from the living room.

"Okay, how about…. Rocky Horror Picture Show first and then Coming Home?" I returned with her favorite Peanut M&Ms, my favorite Sour Patch Kids and the obligatory popcorn all resting on my lap or in my pockets.

"How about Rocky Horror first and no Coming Home?" She asked as I meticulously place all the snacks on the side table. Her eyes lit up at the sight of snacks and she crawled over to sneak some M&Ms.

"Y'know, the rest of my family isn't in the house right now. We can just forget the movie…" I say suggestively to Tina, after which I am promptly hit in the face with an M&M.

"Don't think I've completely forgiven you over that statement you made in the park."

"Wouldn't dream of it…" I said, rubbing the place where the rogue M&M attacked me. "Seriously, Tee. We don't have to watch Coming Home." She just shrugged and made her way to the couch. I find myself lucky to be positioned carefully on a soft cushioned couch, selected to help with my condition, with Tina lying in my arms. The movie started and I knew she put in Coming Home. I was going to ask her why she chose to watch it, when she could've picked something else, but she was falling asleep. I figured she'd rather fall asleep during this rather than a movie she liked. Oh well. I wasn't going to fall asleep anytime soon, so I filled my mouth with popcorn and M&Ms and munched away as the main characters met for the first time. Halfway through the movie, I completely demolished all of the snacks. I finally let myself watch the movie undistracted by food, after all it was coming to the movie's climax. Sally fell in love with Luke despite his disability, but even so, she stayed with her husband. Luke was the bigger man and wanted her to work things out with her husband. Watching the movie with Tina sleeping in my arms made me realize something. If he was strong enough to let the woman he loved go in order to be with someone for her own good, maybe I could be too. And that was the last thought I had before sleep overcame me.

My parents woke us up a couple hours later. It was a little after midnight and they noisily opened the front door, still giddy from their bi-weekly date night. Tina and I hastily unwrapped ourselves from each other before we unwillingly provide my parents with any ammunition for their obligatory embarrassing questions. Hopefully, it looked like we've just watched a movie, but our bed heads and dazed expressions betray us.

"And what have you two been up to?" Asked my mom, hands on her hips.

"Nothing much really, just fell asleep watching a movie." I answered truthfully, shoving Sour Patch Kids in my mouth.

"Which one?"

"Coming Home," answered Tina, fixing her bed head before attending to mine.

"Son, that has to be about the fourth time this week," replied my dad with a look of disbelief. Whether it's because of the amount of times we watched Coming Home or that we really did just watch a movie, I'm not sure.

"Actually, it's been two and a half." I mumbled, knowing that argument will get Tina and I nowhere.

"Alright kids. Whatever you say," replied my dad, tossing an arm over my mom's shoulders.

"What about you two? You guys look like you've had a good time." I asked, wanting to turn the tables on this awkward conversation.

"We had a wonderful time." My mom answered.

"What did you guys do?" Tina interjected. It was really awesome that she liked my parents so much.

"Ask us no questions, we'll tell you no lies." My dad said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, having my dad wink back. "Ew. Never mind I asked." Tina and I shared a disgusted humorous look and bade my parents good night.

"You'd think they'd be the ones to stay in on a Friday night to watch a movie and we'd be acting like actual teenagers," laughed Tina.

"Well, I did suggest other activities but you so gloriously shut me down."

"Because I'm a lady and you're a pig."

"Hey! Last time I checked I was indeed a male adolescent member of the homo sapien species."

"Pig. Teenage boy. Whatever. Same thing."

"Speaking of my hoggish tendencies, it's almost one in the morning. Can you just stay over?" I asked. This wouldn't be the first time either of us had stayed over the other's house, but it was still good manners to ask and make sure her parents know. "You were coming with me to my doctor's appointment tomorrow morning anyway." This was indeed true. She agreed after learning that we usually go to her favorite pizza place for a pick-me-up after my doctor's appointment. "Please?" It took her a few seconds of witnessing my patented 'Artie Abrams' Puppy Dog Eyes' before she answered, "Okay." She grabbed her phone to text her mom that she'd be staying the night. I got up from the couch to go brush my teeth and my other nightly routines. Much later, I wheeled to my room to change into pajamas, only to find all my bed sheets, pillows, blankets and my egg crate mattress missing, as well as most of my cabinet drawers open. Confused, I went back into the living room after changing and saw Tina, wearing one of my old Beatles shirts with a hole in it and a pair of my sweat pants which were a little too big for her, putting the last touches on a fort.

"If you're making me sleep over, we're doing it my way." She stated simply, crawling under the Star Wars bed sheet ceiling. I couldn't help but laugh at her. She popped her head out and told me to get moving because she doesn't have all night. I quickly obliged, moving down from my chair and maneuvering myself carefully onto the mattress. It took a few moments to get everything situated and everyone comfortable. We ended up lying down much like we did earlier in the park, only this time, the soft mattress allowed us to stay like that for the whole night. "I figured since our star gazing was cut short, this could make up for it."

"Yeah, this is much better" I replied and with a quick kiss to the top of her head, I whisper "Thank you." And with that, we finally fall asleep.


	7. One Last Day

A/N: This past week has really sucked for me. I lost my cell phone, iPod and car keys. What the heck? But it makes me happy to see that people are still sticking with me and reading this fic. Special thanks to EverlastingMuse and Average Everyday Sane Psycho for being awesome.

* * *

I woke up that morning with an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Based on what happened last night, I knew. This was going to be the last day that Tina and I would spend together as a happy couple. I repeatedly treat her poorly and ruin her expectations but she keeps coming back and gives me so much. I had to break up with her because she'd be much better off without me. Flat out telling her any of this was out of the question. I had to figure out how to get her to break up with me without causing too much damage. Wouldn't it be easier for her to leave if I just acted like a jerk during the break up? In my opinion, it would. It wouldn't be hard either. I do it all the time unconsciously. I sighed to myself and felt Tina stirring from her slumber. She slowly opened her eyes, but shut them tightly and held me closer, seemingly wanting to go back into her dreamland. I don't blame her for wanting to stay here longer because this is the most awesome fort I've ever been in.

"Wake up…" I told her softly, shaking her a bit.

"No…" She resisted. I shook her again, a little harder this time.

"Well, shake it up baby… Twist and shout… C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon baby now… C'mon and work it on out…"

"Artie, shut up."

"Well, work it on out, honey… You know you look so good…"

"Look so good…" She sang back groggily. Hah! Victory was mine.

"You know you got me going now…" I sang, my volume slowly rising.

"Just like I knew you would…" She sang, finally lifting her head to look at me through hazy eyes. "Can you shut up now?" Dropping her head back onto my chest.

"Hell no, I can't." I replied. "Seriously Tee, we need to get up. My doctor's appointment is in a couple hours." No response. "I'll make you coffee." Finally, she rolled away from me to stretch and I was free to get up and do my thing as well. It only took a few moments for her to crawl out of our fort and cause the Star Wars sheet ceiling to fall down on me. I managed to navigate my way out nonetheless, escaping after a few minutes of careful maneuvering. "Don't think I don't see you curled up on the couch."

"I am not on the couch. I'm actually folding all your sheets. Get your facts straight, Abrams."

"Sorry. Forgive me if I put a muffin next to your coffee?"

"Make it an English muffin and I'll think about it."

"Oh, are you bluffin with your muffin?"

"Get in the kitchen," replied Tina throwing a pillow at my head. She narrowly misses, but I know better to not give her a second chance on matters such as these. I head over to the kitchen to make us some breakfast. The coffee is brewing and I'm toasting an English muffin and a bagel for Tina and I. She walked in and gave me a morning kiss on the cheek before schooling me on how to make her perfect coffee (one cream, five sugars) and her perfect English muffin. Apparently, the trick with toasted foods is to let it cool for a little bit so it would be pretty stable before applying your desired toppings (a little bit of margarine and honey in Tina's case; strawberry cream cheese in mine). The rest of our morning went by without incident. My parents awoke to the smell of coffee and we all tucked into our respective breakfast of sorts. We then parted to get ready for my appointment. I changed as quickly as possible because Tina still had to go home and grab some clothes.

With loads of time to spare, my parents drive us to Tina's place and she's in and out in less than fifteen minutes. She brought back the clothes she slept in, but I told her to just keep them. They look better on her anyway. A couple hours later, I'm done with my doctor's appointment and I'm fit as a fiddle. Dr. Brown just gave me the usual lecture about all of the potential health risks associated with being in the chair. After eight, almost nine years, my parents and I nearly know the whole spiel by heart. Tina, however, was listening with rapt attention, even asking Doc Brown some questions along the way. She's the first person outside of my family to come with me to the doctor and I'm not sure if I told her that.

True to my word, we go to The Nicest Slice and Tina is ecstatic. My parents order an extra-large combination pizza and by the time it gets there, steaming hot, we are all ravenous. My parents chat about their close family friend who just became a grandparent, leaving Tina and I to our own devices. We talk about everything and nothing while we trade toppings, she gives me all of her mushrooms and I give her all of my bell peppers. She piles on the red pepper flakes, contributing her love of spicy foods to her Korean heritage. Meanwhile, my own slices are practically invisible after I drown them in Parmesan cheese. I snuck a bite of hers and immediately drank all of the available waters trying to kill the heat that was burning off my tongue. She just laughed at me and my parents looked confused. Despite my brush with a red pepper flake induced death, lunch was really fun. After Tina and I ate our weight in pizza, we made our way over to the little arcade where I lost three dollars trying to beat Tina at Street Puzzle Fighter. Woman has game. My parents interrupted my victorious comeback (meaning I didn't die in less than five minutes) to tell us that we were headed back home.

On the ride back, I challenged Tina to a match of thumb wrestling. I won best three out of five. We decided to settle the score once and for all by a rousing game of Rock Band. Seven songs in, we're both tired and agreed that we're equally awesome. Sadly, Tina decided to go home for dinner, after all she had been gone for nearly twenty-four hours and she thanked my parents for lunch and that she had a wonderful time.

"Do you really have to go?" I asked her when we were both alone on the front porch.

"Yes, I do."

"But you could totally stay here and watch Coming Home again with me!"

"In that case, I'm leaving right now," she said, pretending to turn on her heel.

"I was just kidding," I said, tugging on her arm and motioning for her to sit in my lap. Thankfully, she obliged. "I'll miss you that's all." I whispered, wrapping my arms around her, burying my face in her hair.

"We just spent the last two days together. And as great those two days have been, I think you'll survive a night without me," she said back, resting her head against mine.

"If you say so…" I replied, weaving my fingers through her hair, "… still, I think I need something to tide me over." And before she asks what, I kissed her. It was gentle at first, but something grabbed both of us and, pretty soon, we were making out in public. The sound of a large truck driving by, combined with a dog bark and an overhead airplane, were not enough to stop us. However, a text message from Tina's mother was.

"I have to go now," she told me, giving me one more kiss before getting off of my lap. "I'll see you later okay?" She said, seeing her mother pull up in my drive way

"Okay. Call me! Or text! Or IM! Or send a carrier pigeon. Oh! Or an owl! Or you can even pull a Princess Leia and send an Artoo unit my way." I waved her to her as she climbed into the passenger seat, laughing at my nerdy word vomit.

We ended up talking on the phone for a couple hours after dinner. I listed to every syllable, every pause for breath and every laugh she made, knowing it would be the last time we'd talk on the phone like this. During the conversation, I kept a strong front as if I didn't know that we couldn't possibly be together anymore. Within the week, I was going to break up with her to free her of this baggage I come with. It's all very logical in my opinion. I want Tina to be happy and I clearly can't give that to her. So even though it will hurt for a while, in the long run she'll be better off for it. I know it. At least, I think…

"… And I told Mercedes that Across the Universe, while an interesting movie, doesn't compare and that she needs to listen to the original Beatles tracks."

"Preach girl."

"Anyway, I'm getting sleepy." I heard her yawn into the phone. "I'll see you tomorrow okay?"

"Okay, just tell me when.

"Bye Artie."

"Bye Tee." I hung up a little after she did so I could hold on to her just for a moment longer. "Goodbye Tina," I sighed, trying to convince myself that the break up was for the best. If I really did love her, I had to let her go. And I know I'll never love anyone as much as her.


	8. Catalyst

A/N: Happy New Month! How many have you are like me and are sad that you're not on the Hogwarts Express? D:

* * *

I went to sleep with fleeting dreams of Billy Idol and Cyndi Lauper, Ike and Tina Turner, the Mamas and the Papas and I think there was a horse wearing tap shoes. Every now and then Tina's smiling form would flitter in and out of each scene and whenever I would reach out to her, she would disappear. It was really weird. I woke up at just before noon with a funny feeling in my stomach and my head felt sort of fuzzy as well. Maybe it was my body protesting what I was about to do about my relationship with Tina. However, I just attributed it to the weird dreams. I shook it off and made my way into my bathroom for prepare myself for a troubling day. My phone rang and I heard a few seconds worth of "I Kissed A Girl," immediately knew Tina was on the other line. I decided to let it go to my voice mail rather than answer it. After all, today was the beginning of the end and I might as well start now. I thought that I should start off with not answering my phone, not replying to texts and when I do, I'll say something stupid. Believe me, the little things can add up and really drive someone crazy.

The first day was more difficult than I thought it would be. For so long, it had been a reflex to pick up my phone and answer her. I couldn't tell you the number of times I had to stop myself from reaching out and breaking my resolve. It got easier as the day went on because of a combination of me getting used to not answering, the decreasing rate of Tina's calls and texts, and me shoving my phone to the bottom of one of my cabinet drawers and not going back into my room for the rest of the day. I distracted myself by going to the local music store and purchasing a couple new guitar picks and a tiny book that showed how to play a lot of Beatles songs. I placed my new items in the pack on the back of my chair and made my way to a small convenient store to restock my supply of Sour Patch Kids. I was browsing through the candy aisle for any other snacks for my stash when I see a familiar blonde looking

"Hey Quinn."

"Oh, hey Artie."

"What are you up to?"

"Just getting some magazines for a spa day at Kurt's house," replied Quinn, holding up the other magazines she picked out. I can safely say that I am not offended by not being invited to the "spa" because from the looks of things, I wouldn't have anything to read. "And you?" In response, I held up a sizable amount of candy.

"I need to restock. Ran out yesterday during a movie date." I replied, motioning for her to go in front of me in line.

"You and Tina? What movie did you guys watch?" She asked, taking a small step forward closer to the cashier

"Well, we didn't actually watch the movie…" She looked at me over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. Wait… why is she looking at me like… Oh God, why did I make it sound like that?

"Oh I see. Artie, I didn't know you had it in you," smirked Quinn.

"What is that suppposed to mean?"

"Nothing." She glanced down in my lap, clearly contradicting her statement.

"Just to let you know, I'm perfectly able to... y'know."

"I'm sure you are... and I'm sure Tina knows too."

"No, it's not like that!"

"Don't worry. I get it. If it helps, I won't tell anyone." She said, turning away from the front of the line to look at me. The look in her eyes made me uncomfortable, so I just motioned to the customer who has just left the store.

"Quinn, you're next." I replied, too embarrassed to continue the conversation.

"Right," she said turning to pay for her stack of magazines. Surprisingly, when she was done, she didn't say goodbye, but rather waited for me by the door. I escorted her to her car and realized that it was Kurt's car. He was sitting in front with Mercedes, both waving to me from the inside. I held the bag of magazines for Quinn as she climbed in the backseat. "Thanks."

"No problem. See you around guys!"

"Later Wheels!" Mercedes shouted out to me and Kurt simply smiled and nodded his head towards me. Quinn waved and I saw them drive off to Kurt's house, all three jabbering away about God knows what.

The moment I saw him and Mercedes waiting in the car for Quinn, I knew her promise to not tell anyone of my unintentionally misleading comment was up in flames. Oh well, there was nothing I could do.

By the time I got back home, it was dinnertime and my parents were mildly surprised that they hadn't seen Tina all day. It was really surprising that I hadn't thought about that. The music store and candy did the trick and Tina hadn't crossed my mind since I hid away my phone. However, once she returned to my mind, so did the ache in my chest. It was too much to take. I had to excuse myself early in order to go back to my room and look frantically at the calls and texts I had missed. Most of them were pretty much the same thing more or less.

_Hey Artie, lunch w. my family?_

_Just had lunch. Come over in 10?_

_Busy 2day?_

_Artie, r u ok?_

_Txt or call me back_

I decided to just text her. The sound of her voice would surely undo me.

**Hey T sorry I missed u. Lost my phone. **I hate lying to her.

_O. I was worried_

**Sorry **

_How was ur day?_

**Mostly stayed home w. the rents. U? **

_Same. Missed u tho ):_

**Sorry, mom is calling. Ttyl. Night.**

She didn't text back. My plan worked because now I'm pretty sure she's upset. We usually spend hours talking, like the previous night, but I basically blew her off because my mom wasn't calling me. I sighed to myself, throwing my phone back in the dresser drawer. I can't stand to look at the thing right now. I left it there for the next day as well, effectively cutting off all ties to the local outside world of Lima. I additionally actively avoided going on Facebook and AIM and any other way someone could get a hold of me. It was inevitable that I would see one of our mutual friends online as well and I knew at least one person was going to grill me about the way I've been acting towards Tina. It was nearing on two days of nearly no contact with any of my friends and it was driving me crazy. I had to keep reminding myself that this self-imposed torture was for the greater good.

That night, after digging through my drawer to find my phone, I saw all the messages and calls I'd missed from Tina and decided to ignore them. Then a few minutes later, I decided to hell with this. Being cut off from society was too much and I needed to hear her voice like right now. I held my cell phone up to my ear and waited for her to answer. And waited. And waited. I was a damn fool for thinking she'd pick up. After three tries, I gave up and left a message asking her to hang out with me tomorrow. As I was lying in my bed and fearing the news of my fate, I seriously gave my break up plans second thoughts. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all. It drove me crazy and I'm pretty sure that Tina's none too happy about my avoidance of her. Wasn't the whole point of my plan to give her a better life? While I beat myself up over this issue, I received a single-worded text from Tina.

_Sure_

**Dinner n movie my place?**

_k_

I spent the entire night and the next day trying to prepare myself for the ensuing awkwardness that was going to surely going to happen that night.

Tina arrived at my house at a quarter until seven. She looked a little off, which I attributed it to the past two days of me basically ignoring her. She said, "It smells good," as she stepped inside my home, not noticing that she held the door open for herself even though I had it propped open on my own. Instead of commenting on it, I bit my tongue and decided to mention it if it happened again.

"Oh it's just some garlic bread and lasagna. Unboxed then heated in the oven by yours truly. Then for our cinematic entertainment, we can watch whatever you want. Though I may point to the top of the pile where Coming Home may be found."

She gave me a very 'Are you serious?' look and I immediately repented my last statement.

The timer on the oven went off and I went to go get the food out of it, carefully placing the flowery oven mittens on my hands after I wheel over. Before I knew it, Tina was in the kitchen, grabbing a dishtowel.

"It's okay. I got it, " she said, bending over to open the oven.

"No Tee, really it's fine." I tried scooting her out of the way.

"C'mon, it's the least I could do," she made a move to open the oven again.

"No, let me do it." I replied, keeping the door closed with my wheel and feeling my temper rise.

"Honestly, it's fine."

"I can do it myself."

"Just let me help you."

"No, Tina! If I want your help, I'll ask for it!" I shot her a glare. "I'm a big boy. I'm perfectly able to prepare dinner for my woman without anyone's help." The beeping on the oven was getting really annoying so I went to switch it off, but Tina got there ahead of me. She did not look happy.

"Your woman?"

"Yeah. You belong to me and I belong to you."

"Oh my God. I can't believe you just… Artie, I am my own woman. I don't belong to anyone."

"I know that, I just meant like… we belong together y'know? You're just overreacting."

"I think the bread is burning," she replied and promptly left the kitchen. I thought she either didn't know what to say in retaliation or was just too angry with me, so she just went back into the living room. The bread wouldn't have been burning if she just let me do it myself. Whatever. I had to let it go and focus on moving the food from the oven and onto the counter. I grumpily portioned out the lasagna and garlic bread onto two plates. I put our dishes onto the kitchen table and I realized the resulting dishes did not score high in presentation, but it still tasted the same and I didn't think we were in the mood to notice.

"Dinner's ready." I call out listlessly into the living room, wheeling over to get a couple of glasses ready for whatever beverage we were going to have. "What do you wanna drink?"

"Whatever. Just water's fine." Crap. She knows that my fridge always has her favorite white cranberry-grape juice available and apparently, she was so angry she forgot. I poured her a glass of each, just in case, and brought them over to her, glasses tucked carefully between my legs.

"Here," I said, handing her the drinks. "Let me just get a soda and I'll be right there." I heard a murmur of thanks when she realized I brought her juice as well, but I was still too annoyed to say anything back to her. A minute later, we're both situated at the kitchen table, awkwardly picking at our food.

"So…" started Tina quietly. "Where have you been the past couple days? You haven't been returning any of my messages or calls or anything."

"Like I said, I lost my phone."

"Twice?"

"Yeah." I could sense her irritability from across the table. I didn't think for a second that she believed me and we were both waiting for something to break.

"So what have you been up to?"

"I've basically been home for the past couple days."

"Mercedes said she saw you."

"Oh yeah, I went on a candy run yesterday."

"She also said something else…" I looked at her questioningly because Mercedes and I literally exchanged less than ten words between us that day. "Artie, what did you tell Quinn about last Friday?" I looked up from my food to see her unreadable expression.

Oh crap.

"I told them I slept over and that nothing happened, but they don't believe me. So what did you tell Quinn?" Tina put her fork down and stared at me with her piercing almond shaped eyes.

"I uh… I just told Quinn that we watched a movie… when she asked which one, I sort of said we didn't really watch it and she just assumed…"

"Assumed that something happened between us?"

"I assume so," I laughed nervously, trying to pass it off as a joke. It was clearly not the right thing to do.

"This isn't funny, Artie. Why didn't you tell Quinn what really happened?"

"I don't know! I just couldn't do it."

"Why not?"

"I just couldn't! Can't we just drop it? It's not like I deliberately said something."

"No you didn't but still."

"But what?"

"First, you're not honest with me about your feelings, then you ignore me for two days and now you've… I can't. I can't. I'm going home now." And with that she left. When I planned out this breaking up thing, I never imagined anything like this.

I cleaned up our un-finished dinners, almost breaking the plates in my frustration. I knew I had been acting like a jerk, but how did I let it get to this? Tina deserves someone who doesn't have to keep fixing things because he'd never break them in the first place. When I mess up, I really mess up. However, this time was the last time because I'm not going to try to fix it… for her sake.


	9. Shattered

The next three days didn't require me hiding my phone in a drawer because Tina didn't try and reach me. It was part of my plan to act like a jerk to her, but I really didn't know what I did wrong though. I told her I wasn't ready to talk about some stuff and she said she was okay with that. Okay, she was rightfully angry about the whole avoiding her for two days thing. But what was I supposed to say to Quinn? Even if I told her the truth, it's not like she would believe me. Nothing I could've said would've changed her mind especially after talking to Mercedes and Kurt about it. None of them believed her when she said that nothing happened, so why should they believe me?

To be honest, it was sort of awesome that they just assumed that. They didn't question my "functionality" and thought that I was just a regular teenage guy. Their belief in my abilities was, after the initial embarrassment, kind of an ego boost. Why couldn't Tina see it that way? I racked my brain to try and see things her way but was interrupted by the Jackson 5's "Dancing Machine" ring tone coming from my phone.

"Who dis be?"

"Sup. I know you probably expect more calls from Asian than me."

"Eh, we're kinda going through a rough patch right now."

"Oh, sorry dude." It sounded like he wasn't sorry at all. Or maybe it was just my crazy imagination, that same part of me that keeps comparing myself to him. My suspicions seemed to be confirmed when he continued the conversation unconcerned at all that Tina and I weren't doing well. "Anyway, I was wondering if you could help me with something…"

"Um, sure. What is it?"

"I got a new camera recently and I was wondering if you could help me make a dance video sometime soon."

"Oh sure, no problem. What were you thinking of?"

"Something featuring me and my older brother, we haven't really decided anything for sure yet. Don't worry. It'll be simple. I don't want anything like that video you made for Rachel or Sue."

"Well, we can start researching stuff on the internet and there are a lot of concert and like music DVDs in the library. I was going to head over there today anyway, wanna come?"

"Sure, I'll call up Jackson to tell him to YouTube dance videos while we're over there."

"Jackson?" He couldn't be talking about whom I thought he was talking about.

"Yeah, my brother." Oh my God. That's kind of amazing.

"Wow. So you guys are Michael and Jackson? No surprise you both are dancers."

"Technically, it would be Jackson and Michael and my parents met at one of the King of Pop's concerts."

Mike Chang is certainly an interesting guy. Since I don't have me license yet, he picked me up in his Honda Civic, which was easy to get in and out of for someone like me. We chatted about our families and I was surprised to learn that he lived across the street from the park Tina and I usually go to. Turns out, he and I played baseball in that park in the same Little League when we were in like second grade. His team beat mine that year and I thought I was going to get them back the next year, but the accident changed my plans. I didn't tell Mike that though. He kinda figured it out when I stopped talking as animatedly about Little League. The awkward silence didn't last long because he pulled up to the library soon after.

I directed him towards the music DVD section and left him to his own devices. After looking on the directory for where the book I wanted was and jotting down the number, I wandered through the Dewey Decimal system for several minutes. I was getting really frustrated and became less careful about not knocking things over. Squinting at the tiny numbers at the bottom of the shelved books was starting to make my eyes hurt and bending over so much was straining my eyes and neck. I was about to give up, but finally found the book I wanted.

On the top shelf.

A book about life in a wheelchair that wasn't all about the medical aspects, written specifically for those who were or knew someone in a wheelchair, was on the top shelf in the middle of a cramped aisle. This time, irony only enhanced my anger.

I was about to turn around and find Mike so we could get out of there before I started to swear really loudly, but he was walking up to where I was.

"Find everything okay?"

"Oh yeah. I found some really awesome stuff," said Mike, showing me DVDs of James Brown, Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake and some old school Soul Train. "How about you? Get what you're looking for?"

"Nah, they didn't have it." I didn't need anyone to help me, especially Mike Chang.

"You sure? Here, gimme that piece of paper, I'll help you look."

"No, it's okay."

"Dude, you're directing my future YouTube sensation. Just lemme see." He took the paper from my hand and promptly found the book I was looking for. He didn't even have to tip toe to get it. "Hmm 'Rolling Through Life'… this it?"

"Yeah…" He handed the book to me and I muttered a thanks. I didn't care whether or not he had good intentions. All I cared about was that I couldn't even get a book without someone feeling sorry for me. I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and focused on the fact I get to gain more filmmaking experience. We left the library soon after and as he dropped me off I told Mike that I'd meet up with him at his house later to talk business.

I cracked out my library book and began to read. It's still embarrassing talking about sex with Doc Brown seeing as he could be old enough to be my grandfather, so I decided reading up on it would be beneficial. 'Rolling Through Life' had a pretty informative section about intimacy in wheelchairs, both emotional and physical. Just as I got to the part about relationships, I heard Tina calling me.

"Hey Tee."

"Hey Artie."

"I've missed you these days."

"Really?"

"Of course." I could tell she didn't believe me. "So what's up?" I didn't think I could take listening to her silent disappointment, so I was quick to change the subject. Although she didn't answer me back right away, my gut was telling me what I've been trying to tell my heart for a long time.

"I just… I've been thinking and… we need to talk."

"About what?"

"I'd rather not do this over the phone, can we meet up at the park or something?"

"Well, come over to my house?" I heard her groan and quietly mutter in annoyance, "Ugh, why does it always have to be your house?"

She replied, "Fine. I'll be there soon," and hung up on me. I brought my book with me so I had something to do while waiting for her by the front door. It didn't help to get my mind off of what was going to happen tonight. The words on the page just looked like a blur and the silence in the hallway turned into buzzing and I couldn't focus on anything. The thought of Tina not being with me anymore… She could finally be everything she can and be happy… I had to make this easy for her. The doorbell rang mercifully so I reached out and opened the door to see her waiting.

"Hey," said Tina shyly, eyes darting in anxiety.

"Hey," I replied, wheeling myself out the front door. She was still standing in the doorway by the time I was halfway down my driveway. "Well, are you coming or not woman?"

"I wish you wouldn't talk to me like that," she replied venomously.

"Like what?"

"You know what. 'Are you coming or not woman.' Why do you say things like that?"

"Jeez, Tee. It doesn't mean anything."

"It doesn't mean anything? Artie, do you not know me at all?"

"I do! I'm sorry okay? Now can we go to the park? Like you wanted to?" She moved behind me to grab the handlebars on my wheelchair and I snapped at her, "I can do it myself. You don't have to push me around all the time," wheeling off in a huff.

"I could say the same to you," she yelled. She begrudgingly walked beside me in silence as we made our way to the park. To think that just barely a week ago, we were eating ice cream and star gazing and now we can't even bring ourselves to talk to each other. To think this was practically all my doing. I was an evil mastermind. "So what did you wanna talk about?" And apparently, a masochist also.

"Oh. Right." She didn't elaborate right away and I just wheeled patiently beside her, finally reaching the park. I could see Mike's car nearby in the driveway of a house across the street and I decided that it was now or never. I stopped and tugged her arm to face me. It took a moment for her to turn and look me in the eye. I plead with her silently for news of our fate, she looked at me and I saw something I had never seen before. She looked at me and she started to speak with a quiet, sad determination. "I don't think this has been working out."

I knew this was going to happen. I was expecting this. Hell, I even planned this. But no amount of preparation could've stopped the pain. Gritting my teeth and holding back the tears, I asked her, "Why not?"

"It's just… I feel like we're just not clicking like we used to. I can't seem to get through to you."

"What do you mean? I'm right here."

"I mean like… Just a little while ago, you called me 'woman' when I've told you a million times that I don't like that. I've watched Coming Home more times than anyone should watch it. It took you months to try green tea ice cream when it took me one visit to try the peanut butter and chocolate ice cream you like so much!"

"First of all, the 'woman' thing? It's a joke! Coming Home is awesome and you have a sweet tooth like no one's business."

"How is it that I'm still not getting through to you?"

"You're just being dramatic."

"Oh, I'm dramatic? Whenever I try to get you to open up to me, you push me away and get all defensive."

"I do not. What are you talking about?"

"You're doing it now!"

"I'm just not ready!"

"When will you be ready Artie?"

"I don't know, just give me time." Just a little more time and then we're finished.

"Time for you to basically drop off the planet and call me up like nothing happened like last time? I can't keep doing this." I decided to dig myself into a deeper hole.

"But according to you, we're not doing anything remember?"

"Are you talking about what you told Quinn?"

"Yeah."

"Oh my God. How could you – why would you bring that up right now? I can't believe this."

"And I can't believe you shot down my masculinity to our friends."

"What about me? What about what they think of me? Oh right, it's always about you."

I kept defiant silence. Was that true?

"Are you trying to upset me? Because the Artie I knew would never do that on purpose."

"Maybe I'm not him anymore. Maybe I'm not the guy you've always hoped for."

"Maybe you're right. But it's only because you get in your own way. I know what kind of guy you can be and I'm sure that I don't want this kind. If you're going to be like this, I can't be with you anymore."

"If that's what you want, fine."

"I never wanted this to happen."

I turned away without uttering a word. I pretended like I didn't see her clutch her sides and sit down on the cold grass. I wheeled away as if I didn't hear her crying. I left her alone as if I didn't love her anymore.

I got to the end of the block and made sure I was out of view. Reaching for my phone and choking back a sob, I made one last call that night, "Hey Mike… Yeah, I'm fine. Allergies. Anyway, I don't think I can help you with your video anytime soon. I got grounded. Yeah I know, it sucks. Maybe next time. Hey listen, I think I might have dropped my wallet in your car. I can't seem to find it. Can you check your car for me? Right now? Thanks a lot. It's not in there? Oh well, I'll look around my room some more. Thanks anyway."

I saw Mike check his car, look around his driveway and see a crying Tina on the ground. I saw him walk over and talk to her. I saw her crying into his arms.

I wheeled myself home, stopping regularly to wipe the tears from my eyes. This was exactly what I wanted. This was all part of my brilliant long term plan to make Tina happy and give her the guy she deserves. All the pain now was for the greater good, right? This was my logical decision.

God, I'm so stupid.


	10. Getting By

A/N: I apologize for the lack of updates last week, but I've been on a roll lately and so I'll probably update again on Friday. It still surprises me that people actually read and like this story and I'm very appreciative. Just so you know, I totally have a friend named Michael who's older brother is Jackson. The thing where Artie's library book for people in wheelchairs was on the tallest shelf happened to me one day and it really annoyed me, so I knew I had to put it in there. Anyway, enough rambling.

* * *

I don't really remember what happened after that in detail. I know I made it back to my house and my room safely because that's basically where I've been for the past week. The only things I remember are climbing into bed that night and not getting out, except for going to the bathroom, for two days. My parents checked on me from time to time the first day but were only met with a dark room and a series of non-committed grunts from underneath my blanket. They tried to get me to eat on several occasions, but I didn't have the energy to do anything. I knew moping around couldn't possibly be a productive way of moving forward, but I really didn't care. The pain in the pit of my empty stomach did nothing to distract from the pain in my chest. Lying underneath my blanket in the dark, I listened to the silence because for once, I knew music wouldn't help me. It was impossible to go through my… our… I guess it technically is just _my_ iPod especially now, but it still feels like _ours_. Just like how the music books on my desk felt like ours because we wanted to prepare an actual duet for Mr. Schue when school started. Just like how this pillow still feels like hers, because she always used it when she was here. Just like how I still feel like I'm hers. I even had a few of her actual things still here and I had no idea what to do with them because break-up protocol is pretty much unknown to me. I wanted to throw them all out, give them back to her and just keep them for myself all the same time, but again, I had no energy to do anything.

On the third day, I had to get out from my bed because my dad made me. He and mom were getting really worried and had given up hope that I would do anything by my own volition.

"So what's going on champ? We've barely seen you all week. You've been practically shut up in your room ever since Tina came over last week," said my dad over brunch. He's called me champ ever since the accident and I never asked why, but I guess he thought it would help me feel better, y'know, make me feel like a winner in spite of losing my legs. I'll never ask him because I never want to tell him it didn't. Instead of answering, I just took another bite of my English muffin with butter and honey.

My mother promptly shushed him probably after seeing me stop chewing for a moment. They had one of those parent conversations where they didn't actually talk but just exchanged a series of looks and I pretended not to notice and resumed chewing. However, I was reminded of Kurt and Mercedes… which reminded me of Glee… which reminded me of Tina. And I stopped eating again.

"Sweetie if you need to talk, you know you can always come to us," said my mom, who has been

"I know… it's just…" I didn't want to say it, because if I didn't, I could still pretend that it wasn't true. But I had to remind myself that this is what I wanted to happened and told my parents, "Tina and I broke up and… I need alone right now."

"Oh honey, I'm so sorry."

"Me too, Mom. Can I go back to my room now?"

"Of course, but you have to come out for dinner okay? I'll make spaghetti, your favorite."

"Yeah," I replied, trying not to think about the time Tina and I pulled more than the appropriate amount of Lady and the Tramp moments and kept getting caught by a waiter at Breadsticks. Smiling in spite of myself, I went back into my room and heard my parents talking through my door, their voices muffled. I didn't want to listen to their sad pitying voices talk about my breakup because it would just make me angry. Most of the adults I encounter have spoken to me in that voice for eight years and for eight years it has driven me crazy. To prevent myself from ramming myself into the wall, my thoughts return back to spaghetti and Tina. That made me smile again at first, but I quickly felt too miserable to do anything again.

I went over what she said to me that night what must have been around a million times and I still couldn't make much sense of most of it. Did I really make things all about me? The answer was a resounding yes, after thinking about all the times I let her down. No wonder it was so easy for my plan to work. Deep down, I wished it wouldn't work but still, I'm glad it did. Tina was finally free to be with the guy she's always hoped for. A little part of me, and I hope a little part of her, still believes I could be that for her. But I know Mike Chang has a mile head start on me. Feeling hopeless, I looked for guidance in the book I borrowed from the library and turned to the section I bookmarked.

About an hour later, things are a lot clearer to me. According to 'Rolling Through Life,' it was expected for young men with spinal cord injuries and such to be especially concerned with their masculinity. Society puts a lot of pressure on guys to be virile and erm, 'healthy' down there and when you're a paralyzed guy, that kinda screws with your head. I didn't want to make excuses for my chauvinistic and misogynist behavior, but at least now I understand why I do it. It was a poor way of expressing the fact that I was indeed a guy. This book totally gets what I was trying to tell Tina about what happened with the Quinn thing. Then again, I knew it was also me being self-centered. Now that I knew the source of my issues, maybe now I could try and fix them.

I also read about having able-bodied partners. This woman talked about her paraplegic husband saying that because they were so close, he wasn't a burden and he helped her as much as she helped him and it was just a matter of learning about each other over the years. I had never really had a deep and comprehensive with Tina about my condition because it was still a sensitive subject with me. She was the first one out of my family and doctors I had ever let that close. I was always so concerned about what she would think and like, the more she knew about it, the more she wouldn't like it. However, according to the book, and common sense now that I'm aware of it, we should have tackled those issues first so we both knew what we were getting into. Then we wouldn't have had all those uncomfortable awkward moment or little fights. Well, now she doesn't need to deal with that now.

The rest of June was spent pretty much by myself, there was only about a week left anyway by the time Tina and I broke up. Solitary trips to and from the library and the music store were the only times I went out of the house on my own and actually felt okay. Time passed by without much incident, just a few moments here and there where I was reminded of what I had lost. I gathered all of Tina's personal items that were in my house and put them in a box in my closet. There were some things that couldn't be hidden away like the pillow or the scuff on the hardwood floor from where Tina tripped over her combat boots or the stain on my desk where she spilled her black nail polish. Our… My iPod hasn't changed its contents partly due to my music addiction, but it's mostly due to her that I can't delete anything. I just end up skipping a lot of songs when I listen to it, which gets really annoying. These moments made me wonder what she was doing and how she was coping. From the little I could gather from her Facebook and Twitter, she had been spending a lot of time with Mercedes and Kurt… and Mike. I thought it was ironic that I had been the one pushing people away and she was with friends.

That's when it hit me that I shouldn't be like this anymore because that's not the person I want to be. Maybe I should take up my parents' offer on going to them to talk. My mom was in the kitchen cooking something and bracing myself, I went to her.

"Hey sweetie, how's it going?"

"Better."

"I know you've been upset about the whole Tina thing, but you really should get out of your room more often and go out with your other friends." The way she was waving around her knife while she was talking was a little scary, but she promptly went back to cutting the carrots. I forced myself to stop thinking about how those are Tina's favorite vegetable next to bell peppers

"Yeah, I know. Listen mom, can I ask you something?" She put her knife down, wiped off her hands and looked at me.

"Of course, what is it you want to talk about?"

"Well… I... y'know how a couple weeks ago you and dad saw me and Tina lying together on the couch?"

"Oh God. Don't tell me I'm going to be a grandmother."

"What? No!"

"Good. Because Arthur James Abrams you are too young to be a father."

"Yeah… Anyway… Well, you kinda just assumed that... THAT happened. And well, it didn't. But I sorta let my friends think that happened anyway…"

"You told them that you and Tina…?

"Actually, I told one friend that we watched a movie, but we didn't really watch it. And she got the wrong idea and I didn't correct her. And Tina found out and she got really mad at me and yeah." My mom looked at me funny and sighed. She then called my dad into the kitchen and made me retell everything to him. I wondered why she had to get reinforcements, but I didn't have to wonder any longer.

"Oh son," sighed my dad, much like my mom did earlier.

"Richard, I think you should teach your son a lesson about acting like a gentleman," she gave my father a pointed look.

"Why did you let them think that, champ?"

"I'm in a wheelchair, but I'm still a guy."

"And I'm sure all the guys would be impressed, but what do you think when you hear stories like that?"

"That the guy got lucky."

"And what about the girl?" Chimed in my mom.

"That she was… oh." I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of that.

"Get it, son?"

"There are some serious double standards when it comes to guys and girls and y'know. A guy does it and he's the big stud on campus. A girl does it and people think she's a…" My mom stopped to find a not so offensive word, so I supplied one.

"A scarlet woman?"

"What?" My parents both looked at me really weird at this point.

"I read it in Harry Potter."

"Why are they talking about that stuff in Harry Potter?" My dad asked.

"Well, actually Mrs. Weasley, y'know Ron's mom, uses it and Ron got all mad at Hermione for going out with this Bulgarian Quidditch player and…"

"Okay, okay. We get it," said my mom exasperatedly looking at my dad and I. "A girl does it and people think she's a 'scarlet woman'. And you know Tina is a, what did she like to say again? Oh, a righteous feminist. Of course she wouldn't appreciate what you said or didn't say about what happened that night.

"Right."

"So champ, you understand now right?"

"Yeah. I feel really stupid."

"Don't worry about it too much. It happens to the best of us." After seeing my questioning look, my dad replied with a pat on my shoulder.

"I think now you should go to Tina and apologize," said my mom with my dad nodding in agreement.

"She had a million reasons to break up with me and apologizing would make her come back."

"Don't you want her back?"

"Yeah, but… didn't you see how badly I messed up? She doesn't deserve that."

"We all mess up, but that doesn't mean we should give up."

"I'll think about it." My dad looked like he was going to say something, but one look from my mom kept him quiet. "Thanks. That makes much more sense now and well, thanks."

"No problem, champ," said my father clapping a hand on my shoulder and exiting the kitchen. My mom just smiled at me and resumed cutting vegetables and other cooking things I didn't really know too much about. I gave them a smile each and I went back into my room to think some more and it didn't take that much out of me. Between 'Rolling Through Life' and my parents, despite the pain in my chest that was still there, I felt better about the situation, knowing what went wrong. And as they say in G.I. Joe, knowing is half the battle. Now the question is, what do I do now?


	11. Family Issues

A/N: I don't know where this chapter came from because I was just writing and this happened. The update came early because I really want to get all this posted before Season 2 starts, so hopefully, I'll be able to keep this pace up. This chapter sorta includes minor spoilers for The Rocky Horror Picture Show and it's relevance to Glee a little bit.

* * *

Instead of calling Tina and apologizing like I should, I ended up lying in bed eating my weight in candy and junk food and watching Coming Home. I am fully aware that this is a weekly thing and it borders on unhealthy ritual, but it makes me happy. Well, it helped me cope for the rest of the summer, which was something to be thankful for. My family had a 4th of July Weekend Blowout Barbeque Reunion thing in Toledo, which was really fun for the most part. The food was awesome because my family knows how to make a good brisket. After eating all that candy, it was nice to have an actual meal outside of my house. I got to see all my cousins, whom I haven't seen in almost four years and I got to play basketball with them. It was getting really uncomfortably hot in my sweater vest (stars and stripes, thank you very much) and I had always been terrible so I was thoroughly surprised when I made the winning shot. Tired from pretty much the only non-physical therapy exercise I've had all year, so I went back to the dining area, where a nice cold lemonade waiting for me to get it. I was bombarded by aunts and uncles, telling me how much I've grown and how much more handsome I've gotten, pinching my cheeks and ruffling up my hair. To be honest, I put up with it because they would slip some money in my hand when they shook it. The only things worse than that were the heat and the constant questions about my girlfriend.

When I heard about the reunion about a couple months ago, I asked my dad if he could RSVP for four because I wanted to bring Tina along. I realized I never even asked her because I was too distracted with school and Glee and the beginnings of summer. Then we broke up and I wonder how things would've gone along if that didn't happen. Would she be miserable right now, dying of heat? Would she have liked my family? Would they have liked her? Would she be invited to do stuff? I like to think it would have went well, but I guess I'll never know and now I was being constantly interrogated by my relatives about this mysterious girl. When I told them we weren't together anymore, responses were made up of many "Oh, well you'll find a nice girl again someday," a couple "Boy, she'll come crawling back to you" courtesy from a couple drunk uncles and even some "Pssh, you never had a girlfriend. You totally just made her up" from cousins that I never really liked in the first place. In retaliation, I showed Nick and David a picture of me and her at one of Kurt's murder mystery dinners, decked out in old Hollywood style clothes. It was one of the only pictures where I thought the both of us actually looked good.

"She usually dresses in Goth clothes, just so you know," I said moving to put the photo back in my wallet.

"A Goth and an Asian? Dude. You hit the jackpot. I heard Goths know a thing or two. They got like weird fetishes and are totally kinky," Nick said. No wonder I've always thought he was a complete moron.

"Damn Artie. That was your girl? Bangin' body," said David, stealing my picture from me. "But there must've been somethin' wrong with her if she was with you. I mean c'mon. She's totally hot."

"Yeah dude, how far did you get with her? I heard those Asian chicks can and would anything. Really freaky, if you know what I mean," winked Nick in a totally obnoxious inappropriate way.

"Dude!" David looked pointedly at my lap.

"Oh right. But still, I bet she could've figure out something to do," and Nick mimed something he never would have done in front of the adults.

"Aw man, that's nasty! But seriously, Artie, did you get some?" David asked. My blood was already boiling and I've learned my lesson. I was never going to anyone, not even myself and definitely not losers like them, disrespect her like that again.

"It's none of your business. And stop talking about her like that." I said to them in a raised voice, reaching out to grab my photo back from them. Unfortunately, David being a tall able-bodied teenage boy, held it out of my reach easily.

"Oh, I guess he didn't. No wonder she left him. Couldn't give her the goods," David nudged Nick in the ribs, shaking his head. I had to remind myself to breathe deeply and control my temper.

"Totally. She could've been getting some on the side though. She looks easy enough."

Oh hell no.

Before anyone could stop me, I threw a couple of punches into David and Nick, causing them to keel over in pain. Without a second to lose, I rammed into them in my chair with full force and sent them flying backwards onto pavement. I wheeled over and grabbed my photo back, hearing the adults freaking out over what had just happened.

"Don't ever talk about Tina like that again." I warned, wheeling into them on last time before getting away from angry relatives. I can't remember ever being that mad because I learned that fuming with anger was not just a figure of speech. I thought I was gonna explode so I just let out a great barbaric yawp to release some of the tension.

"Arthur James Abrams, what in the world happened back there?"

"Dad, not now," I said, but my dad wouldn't give up just yet. "Please! Not now. I need time to cool off." He gave me a stern warning that if I weren't ready to talk in 10 minutes, he'd make me ready. I ended up stopping at a small creek and I finally let myself calm down, staring at the picture of me and her that was now a little wrinkled in the scuffle. Even in a messed up photo, Tina was still beautiful. Whatever punishment I was going to get for mowing down those jerks was well worth it. No one should make those comments about any girl, especially Tina. Hearing my cousins talk about her like that… I can't even… So this is what it must have felt like for Tina to hear me talk to her in not so respectful ways. After my talk with my parents, I knew I had to change things, but because of what just happened I was definitely going to change things. Even if we couldn't be together anymore, she deserves an apology. I made a note to call her when I get back to Lima after the reunion.

My dad came to get me and I explained to him what happened on the way back to the main area where our family was staying. My dad got really mad at my cousins for saying what they said, but he still scolded me on running them over "even if they deserved it". His words, not mine, which makes him an awesome dad. He went to go tell my mom what happened and I tried to avoid as many questions as possible. David and Nick were sitting sulkily and talking to each other in low voices while nursing minor scrapes and bruises. The adults saw me return and they all had the same dark expression on their faces. I'm not gonna lie, I felt like a badass. I bet none of them expected little Artie Abrams could kick ass. Just because I was in the chair doesn't mean I can't (as Mercedes would say) throw down and take someone to the carpet. My Aunt Jane came up to me and demanded an explanation, crossing her arms and looking at me like I was a stain in her favorite dress. I just told her that her sons were being extremely disrespectful while talking about my friend and I lost my temper and that it wouldn't happen again.

"What were they saying?"

"I don't think it's appropriate to talk about that kinda stuff. Why don't you ask them?" I shot a glare at them, which I hope Aunt Jane didn't catch. Nick and David stayed away from me after that incident, which was relieving. My wheelchair isn't supposed to take that much stress and I could ruin it if I keep running things over. Luckily, the reunion lasted only one more day then my parents and I were headed back to Lima.

The last day of the reunion was uneventful aside from a half-assed apology from David and Nick with their mother looming in the background. I accepted with matching enthusiasm and quickly wheeled away to snag some more brisket and bread to munch on during the ride home before we all had to part ways. My much older cousin Liv spotted me preparing a doggy bag and handed me a small plate full of brownies, telling me that she didn't condone violence, nodding to David and Nick and giving me small smile. She continued to tell me that her brothers haven't been gentlemen for a long time and was glad that I could straighten them out. On the ride home, I told my parents that I was going to apologize to Tina and they said they were proud of me and that I'd come to the right decision. I asked my mom what she would have said if I decided not to apologize. She replied, "But you did… and I knew you would."

When we reached Lima, I tried calling Tina on my phone but she didn't pick up. Not even on the third try. I sighed to myself because I really wanted to apologize to her in person, but it seemed like it would have to wait. In the meantime, I just left a message on her phone and waited for her return call while deciding which movie to watch. I picked up Coming Home and set it aside in favor of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. During the movie, I thought that it would be awesome to do something like this for Glee. I could totally see Tina as Magenta and Kurt as Riff Raff but I didn't want to picture any of the guys in that golden speedo thing. I guess I could be Dr. Scott. Yeah. I can totally see this happening while occasionally stealing glances at my silent phone. The end credits started rolling and I gave up waiting for her call, something I have never done before.


	12. The Boy Who Loved

A/N: I really enjoyed writing this chapter, especially stuff with Puck (I couldn't help but make fun of Mark Salling a little bit). I had a lot of fun writing the bits with him, Finn and Brittany. So I hope y'all enjoy reading it.

* * *

She didn't call back and I didn't hear from her for weeks until all the Glee kids were invited to Rachel's Magical and Magnificent Party To Celebrate Harry Potter's 30th and J.K. Rowling's 45th Birthday Spectacular at the end of July. Rachel mentioned (and by mentioned I mean dedicated an entire paragraph) that it was a costume party and Tina called me to see if she could borrow one of my white dress shirts. The phone call felt oddly formal and stiff and nothing like how I remember our other conversations used to be. It was really awkward and not like the cool awkward we usually are, but the bad awkward like... this. It was a couple days before the party and Tina was coming by around noon to come get the shirt and I decided to try and apologize to her then. The doorbell rang and for the first time in over a month, I saw Tina outside of my imagination.

"Hey Artie." She stayed outside of the front door, looking nervous.

"Hey Tee." Was it still okay for me to call her that? "Here's the shirt you wanted to borrow," I handed over the paper bag containing a freshly laundered and ironed white button down dress shirt.

"Thanks… Listen. I'm sorry I missed your calls, I was at camp…"

"Camp?"

"Yeah… with Mike."

"Oh." What was I supposed to say to that?

"Well, thanks for the shirt again."

"No problem," I just nodded and put on one of my infamous fake smiles. I wondered if she still knew the difference, but if she did, she didn't let on because she turned away, smiled and waved. Oh right, I almost forgot. "Wait Tina. Can we talk for a little bit?" When she looked at me with her smile faded, the pain in my chest returned again after being dulled for a while now.

"Actually, my ride's waiting in the driveway. Maybe later?"

"Oh, alright. Later then. Promise?" I didn't really know how to react when I saw her cross her heart and walk away from me. We shared one last smile before I saw her drive off in a familiar Honda Civic. My plan was working much to my displeasure and I really did not want to think about how well things working. Unfortunately, I heard way too much information at Rachel's party a few days later. I went with Kurt because he helped apply some make-up for my costume. Finn was already at Rachel's house because she probably needed someone tall to hang stuff. I showed up at his house three hours before the party because he needed 2 hours to get ready and he wanted to get my make-up done before he got dressed so he wouldn't accidentally ruin his latest masterpiece. I didn't want to dress up as Harry Potter because that was my go to Halloween costume for years when I didn't want to be a rollerskate (I may or may not have stolen that particular idea from movie featuring Macaulay Culkin in a wheelchair, just saying). So I picked Remus Lupin and decided to go with the movie interpretation of him and asked Kurt to help me with the scars. However, I did decide against growing a full on mustache but settled on some scruff instead. Looking in the mirror in Kurt and Finn's room, I thought I looked rather roguish. At least I thought I did before Kurt took my glasses off and started with the make-up. Then I was sorta just fuzzy in a non-facial hair sort of way.

"Maybe I should be Aragorn for Halloween this year." I ran my hand over my stubbled face and had it slapped away in an instant.

"Hey! No touching until I'm finished."

"Oh right, sorry."

"And stop talking. You need to keep your mouth still if I am to do this right," said Kurt leaning back to examine his work so far. From what I could see without my glasses, it looked good. "Thank Gaga you grew this out to look like Lupin. I thought you'd let yourself go after breaking up with Tina." I guess Kurt saw the change in my eyes at the mention of Tina and he decided to lighten the mood. "Because believe me Artie, the disheveled hobo look doesn't work for anyone. Not even hobos. Ask Patches." I started to laugh but Kurt shushed me back to resuming my stone face and drew in the final touches. "Seriously Artie, how are you doing?" I just looked at him and shrugged. "You may speak now, by the way," he replied handing me my glasses. He stood behind me as I put them back on and saw the final product. I thought I looked a lot like Lupin with just the brown suit, but the scars really did it and Kurt mussed up my hair a little bit to make the look perfect.

"Wow this is amazing. Kurt, you did an awesome job."

"I know," he said stepping behind the privacy partition in his room. "Can you hand me that cloak on the wingback chair over there? Thank you." After seeing a dark blue piece of fabric on a very large chair, I wheeled over and retrieved it for him. "You still haven't answered my question. How have you been doing since… the separation?"

"I'm alright. Did Tina say anything?" I heard Kurt pause because the noise from the ruffling of various fabrics stopped. "That bad?"

"She mentioned certain unflattering things about you, but I would be interested hearing your side."

"I was a disrespectful jerk that didn't pay any attention to her."

"Hm."

"Hm? What does that mean?"

"Does this have anything to do with a juicy bit of gossip Quinn shared with Mercedes and I about a month ago?"

"Yeah. Kurt, I want to be perfectly clear. I may still have full use of my penis, but nothing like that happened with Tina that night. We literally just slept. I just… didn't know what I was thinking when I said those things back then. It drives me crazy that I let that happened and I would take it back if I could. Okay?"

It took a moment before Kurt stepped out from behind the privacy partition with his pants and shirt on. "Let me start off by saying, your case of word vomit is one of the worst I have ever encountered and if you talk about your functionality again, I will strangle you with your Gaga awful suspenders. But more importantly, I believe you,'' he said, walking to get a small box on his dresser. I asked him why and he replied, "No guy ever brags about not getting any. All those ignorant Neanderthals in the locker room after football practice ever talked about were their disgusting quote unquote conquests," shuddered Kurt, stepping behind the partition again. "It was completely crude and nauseating and I'm glad you've learned your lesson."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it. But have you mentioned it to Tina?"

"No, but I've wanted to."

"I'm sure she'll forgive you."

"She's better off without me." Kurt stopped talking and we stayed quiet until he emerged from the partition for the final time. "Dude. That's awesome." He was fully dressed in an elaborate dark blue set of dress robes like in the Goblet of Fire movie. From his carefully tied tie to his shiny shoes, I really couldn't expect less from Kurt.

"One, don't ever call me "dude" again. Two, yes, I know," he said checking himself out in the full-length mirror. "I was debating between this color or a deep scarlet, but I went to the fabric store and this one spoke to me." Kurt took out his pocket watch and told me that we were just in time to be fashionably late. When I asked him about being punctual he told me that we had to look perfect or we shouldn't be bothered to attend.

Kurt and I arrived to be greeted for ten minutes by Rachel who complimented us for our costumes and was gesturing to show us how everyone else looked great as well. Most of our friends were dressed in the student's uniforms more or less. Santana's skirt was way too high and Puck, dressed in jeans and an owl shirt, seemed to appreciate it. Finn, Brittany and Tina were the only ones besides me, Kurt and Puck who weren't in student uniforms. Finn made a hilarious Hagrid complete with giant fake beard. Brittany also showed up with a giant fake beard but had on overalls and a gardener's belt. I don't think she understood the 'Harry Potter' theme correctly and everyone seemed to give up trying to explain to her.

"Y'know, Harry Potter… Magical boy wizard who attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?" Kurt tried to explain, gesturing to his dress robes and everyone else in school uniforms. "Why do you think Santana was wearing a school girl's outfit?"

"But she always wears clothes like that for our sleepovers on Friday nights."

"Britt, it's Tuesday."

"It is? But Tuesday is Xena night. "

"I don't even want to know," Kurt walked off shaking his head, muttering.

Seeing Tina, it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn't have dressed like Lupin because how could I forget? Of course she would be dressed as Tonks. She was talking animatedly to Matt and had Mike Chang's arm around her shoulder.

"Dude. What happened to your face? Did you get in a fight?" Asked a very confused Finn sounding very muffled due to the beard.

"Actually, I did get in a fight earlier this month, but that has nothing to do with my face." Apparently, Puck has selective hearing and heard the word 'fight' and joined in on the conversation.

"So what happened to your face?" Finn asked again.

"It's make-up and I'm supposed to be a Remus Lupin, y'know the werewolf?"

"I thought werewolves were all shirtless Native American dudes," replied Finn.

"Dude. Lupin isn't one of those lame werewolves. He was like the coolest professor at Hogwarts was actually kick ass back in the day," argued Puck much to my, and everyone's surprise. He saw all of our astonished looks and explained, "What? My little sister is all over this Harry Potter stuff," giving us a look that scared us into not asking him to go further into the subject and everyone went back to their own devices. "Seriously though Wheels, you got in a fight?"

"Uh yeah. I ran over a couple cousins at my family reunion."

"Wait what?" Mercedes said entering the conversation, "You ran over your cousins? At a family reunion? Why?"

"They were just being jerks, talking crap about me and my friends," I stole a glance towards Tina, which I'm pretty sure Mercedes caught. "So I punched them and proceeded to take them to the carpet… er, pavement rather."

"Nice," Puck said, giving me a fist bump and walked away towards the refreshment table, though I'm not really sure if it was a compliment for my violent actions or because Santana spilled her drink on her shirt.

"Whoa. They must've made you real mad," said Finn.

"Yeah. The things they were saying…" I glanced at Tina again, fully aware that Mercedes was watching my every move. "Not cool."

"Well, I'm glad your scars aren't real then. But they are kinda cool looking," said Finn giving me a weird look before heading back to Rachel.

"So you gonna tell me what really happened, Wheels?" Mercedes asked me pointedly, her hands on her hips. I knew it wasn't a question. We found a quiet corner in Rachel's living room and I told her everything. I repeated the speech I made to Kurt earlier today and told her what my douche bag cousins said about Tina and everything in between. After I was done, I got the same reaction I got from Kurt.

"Have you told any of this to Tina?"

"I want to but… she seems happy with Mike."

"They just started dating just so you know. She told me it happened when they went to this Asian kid camp and they just sorta jumped each other one day when they were supposed to be watching the kids. I don't know about you, but that just don't seem right to me." I winced at this information. "You should really tell Tina what you told me. She should know so she can make the right choice. Y'know, Imma be honest with you, I never thought my girl would be part of a love triangle."

"Me neither."

"Meanwhile, not even one boy wants to get up on this Chocolate Thunder."

"Gurl, you know I gots me some white chocolate," I winked at her.

"You are trippin' Vanilla Lighting," laughed Mercedes. She gave me that nickname after we sang Lean On Me together and I thought it was awesome.

"Just kidding. Thanks for listening and the input."

"You guys are my friends, I just wanna see y'all happy." She said simply, making her way towards Kurt who had been waving for her attention for a while. I watched them for a moment and realized they must be talking about me because they caught me staring a few times and gave me weird smiles. I let them gossip and I wheeled over to grab some Cauldron Cakes and Butterbeer homemade by Rachel, making a note to myself to ask her for the recipes. I was refilling my goblet and was very surprised to see Tina waiting next to me.

"Can I get a refill?"

"Of course."

"I like your costume. Sorry I didn't end up using your shirt for my costume. It took me a while to realize I had way more stuff to be Tonks. Mike has it in his car, I can go get it for you after the party or something.

"It's cool… You look amazing by the way… but I think maybe Mike should've been Lupin instead of me." I still don't really know why I say things like that. She just smiled sadly. "I make a cuter Harry Potter anyway."

"I don't know, that stubble you got going on isn't bad."

"Really? I was thinking of being Aragorn this Halloween."

"I can see that," Tina said softly and I could tell that she and I were both wondering who my Arwen would be. "Artie, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Mike earlier. I just…"

"It's okay. I get it. He can give you things I never can." She was about to argue with me, but I stopped her. "You deserve so much more than me and I just wanna tell you that I'm sorry for everything. Especially that one thing. I've cleared it up with everyone and… yeah. I'm sorry."

"Artie…" She looked at me sadly and I couldn't bare to look at her anymore so I left to talk to Puck about Harry Potter stuff. It was a surprisingly good conversation, despite his excessive use of profanity and the complete denial of his inner nerd. We were just getting into a debate over who would win in a fight Dumbledore or Gandalf, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" Quinn asked. I felt the awkward tension between her and Puck and immediately agreed to avoid another weird situation. "Mercedes and Kurt told me what happened and I guess I wanted to say sorry," said Quinn quickly and not really looking at me, but Tina instead.

"You're sorry?"

"Girls don't like to be treated the way you treated her and I'm glad you've decided to change." She said stiffly, "So why don't you try to get her back? I mean, when Finn just started hanging out with Rachel, I wanted to shoot someone."

"Are you sure that wasn't the pregnancy hormones?" I quipped, but apologized right after Quinn shot me a death glare. "But yeah. I know what you mean." We both looked at Tina and Mike, who was getting her a vegetable plate full of celery and tomatoes and a side of ranch dressing. She kissed his cheek when he returned with the food. If it were me, I would've gotten her carrots and bell peppers with thousand island and a Cauldron Cake so that she could sneak some what she thought I wasn't looking.

"Don't think that you've got anyone fooled Abrams. We all can tell how you feel about her. It's in your eyes, " and I remembered when she touched my shoulder when Mike and Tina danced all those months ago. Quinn looked and me and smiled. "Seriously. It's starting to get sickening." And she walked away.

I took a moment to reflect on how I never thought I'd spend a Harry Potter costume party like this. Talking with my friends had good advice and they were right. I still loved her. Well, most of my friends were insightful because I almost forgot I left Puck hanging.

"Dude, Gandalf would totally kick Dumbledore's ass!"


	13. Lazy Summer

A/N: The end of summer is here and soon we'll be headed back to McKinley. I just wanted them to have a little more summer fun before Artie saps it up during Glee rehearsals.

* * *

The Harry Potter party was pretty fun, despite the frequent urges I got to punch a hole through the wall whenever I saw Tina with Mike. Then when I didn't have to urge to punch a wall, I had to urge to punch his face in when he had his arm around her. As far as I could tell, he wasn't doing anything terrible and was a nice guy. He got her refreshments, helped her win the Name That Bertie Bott's Flavor Bean game (they won boxes of regular jelly beans) and helped her snag second place at the Trivia contest. Puck and I won first place (we won a fake wand and a stuffed toy owl and Puck insisted on the owl for his little sister. When I questioned this, he punched me in the shoulder). Kurt was voted best costume, which was no surprise, even though I kinda wanted to vote for Brittany. The party ended with karaoke even though it wasn't Harry Potter related, but we're a Glee club and what the hell else are we supposed to do?

Kurt waited for me in his car while I went with Tina to get my shirt back in Mike's car. Mike was still in Rachel's house, making sure Matt was okay to get a ride home from Santana and Brittany. Quinn and Mercedes left together and Puck went to get dip in the middle of karaoke but he never came back. Finn was going to help Rachel clean and he'd meet Kurt at home.

I put the shirt in the pack on my chair and we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. I got into Kurt's car and we both saw Mike walking over to his.

"I can run him over if you like," suggested Kurt.

"No, it's alright." He put his hand on my shoulder when he saw me frown at the sight of Mike and Tina kissing rather enthusiastically before he opened the door for her to get it. "It took us months for us to share a small kiss. They're been together for what? Two, three weeks?"

"It's because you guys were careful about your friendship. They didn't have that much to worry about. Besides, have you seen Mike Chang's body? I don't blame her."

"Have you seen _my_ body?"

"You wear so many layers, it's hard to tell what assets you have. Why? Are you offering a free show?"

"Nope. It's getting cold out." Kurt shook his head and muttered something like "Men." and started to drive me home. Even though our throats were sore from hours of talking with friends, shouting during games and hours of karaoke, Kurt and I managed to jam out to Telephone and Video Phone. He was an awesome Gaga to my Beyonce so I talked him into convincing Mr. Schue let us sing Telephone for Glee one time. It wasn't so much convincing as I mentioned it jokingly and he immediately agreed. We shared a laugh after joking that Mr. Schue would end up giving the song to Rachel in the end. Kurt pulled up to my driveway and I thanked him for the ride and the make-up and being cool about the me and Tina thing. He said I could repay him by letting him give me a makeover because apparently, they're like crack to him.

August came and went and it was almost all I could do to try and not be a hermit. When I was awake, I kept thinking about Tina. And if I wasn't thinking about her, I was thinking about thinking about her. When I was asleep, I would dream about her. It was all very stressful. Was I on her mind too? It was highly doubtful, but I've always been an optimist. And when I wasn't an optimist, I was good at faking it. I know he'll be good to her and she'll be happy with him and this really was all for the best, but I hated seeing them together. They looked like such an ordinary high school couple, whereas Tina and I were the Goth Chick and the Wheelchair Kid. But we didn't care. At least she didn't. Why couldn't the world see us for more than what we look like? Oh right, we're in high school and pretty much nothing else matters. But Tina always told me that when we got out of this town to go to college and go off and live our life, those kids back at McKinley would probably still be in Lima.

It never occurred to me how incredibly naïve and foolish it was for us to always talk about our future as our future. We just assumed we'd always be together. Too much change scared both of us, but at least we'd have each other. The prospect of facing the world without her finally hit me and it really freaked me out. To be honest, I was doing perfectly fine without her. I got around by myself like to the store or the library or whatever. I hung out with my own friends from AV Club and Jazz Band and our friends from Glee. I learned a few new songs on the guitar from those music books she and I bought all those months ago, semi-subconsciously learning them to impress her when we got back to school. I cooked dinner for my parents and I, and not just heating stuff in the oven either, but rather a couple full on meals. My dad even let me try my hand at grilling on Labor Day Weekend and my mom finally started to relax and not hover over me constantly when handling hot objects. It felt really good to be able to do stuff. It was jarring to realize that I didn't need Tina as much as I thought I did. I guess part of me wanted to prove that when we broke up, I could still do things on my own and I was independent. I really was doing okay without her.

The part that freaked me out over facing the world without her was that, I didn't ever want to have to do that. Even though the break up taught me I didn't need her to be my crutch anymore, I still wanted her to be. I still wanted her so much. No matter what I wanted, she still was happy with Mike. Well, it seemed like that whenever I saw her at a party or randomly at the mall or park with him. She looked happy eating that almond pretzel he got her, even though she's a major sugar fiend like I am and usually gets cinnamon. She was smiling when he pushed her on the swings, but she was laughing when I pulled her around while she wore rollerskates.

Maybe I got this whole thing wrong and maybe I really did make her happy. No. I couldn't be wrong because no matter how happy I made her, there were so many times I let her down. But still, couldn't I be selfish just this one time? I'd be much better to her the second time around. I know I would be. Besides, my parents and our friends would totally kill me if I hurt her like that again. But they wouldn't have to because I wouldn't. I sighed to myself knowing that all of the could haves, would haves and should haves don't matter because I can't. I can't because I let her go.

So seeing her laugh when Mike says something to her, holding hands and exchanging other forms of affection was my punishment for being stupid enough to treat her badly and being even more stupid about it and not apologizing and trying to work it out. Even though I knew I deserved it, the sight of them made me want to kick and scream.

"Oh honey, don't you mean wheel and scream?"

I sighed heavily, "It's just a figure of speech Mom." After having that talk with my parents earlier in the summer and them being cool about the whole beating up my cousins thing, I've been a lot more open to them.

"Just give it time," she repeated for the millionth time. "Who know? Maybe you'll find someone new. Maybe she won't want you back. Maybe you'll get back together. Just give it time and things will be clearer."

Luckily, patience was something I possessed a lot of. Months of rehab, years of people treating me differently along with endless hours of practicing a song until perfection were all lessons in patience. Before I could reply, Telephone was coming out of my cell phone and my mom excused me to take the call in the hall instead of the kitchen.

"Hey Kurt," I had changed his ringtone to Telephone after we had that mini jam session in his car. "What's up? A trip to the reservoir? Tomorrow? Uh, lemme ask." I shouted to my mom to ask and all I got was an "Ask your father." To which he replied from the living room, "Ask your mother." I was about to shout back then my dad went, "Hah! Just kidding. Of course you can go."

"I see where you get your humor from."

"Very funny. So who's coming? Oh. Alright. Well, just call when you're on your way. Later." Turns out it was an end of the summer celebration for the four members New Directions that have been there since the very beginning and never quit.

It wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be. Kurt drove and Mercedes co-piloted leaving me and Tina in the backseat. Three months ago, this would have definitely led to a comment about whether or not that was a good idea if Kurt wanted his car to stay innocent. Now, however, there were piles of snacks between us along with a lot of things left unsaid. The car ride wasn't long but we did get to talk about my misadventures with cooking, the Rachel led dinner that Kurt had at his house the previous week, the John Mayer concert Mercedes went to with her brother and the summer camp Tina went to (she left out a lot of Mike details, which was a big relief). We got to Winona Lake Campgrounds in no time and we unloaded the food and water stuff and proceeded to have a hell of a time. We got into our swim clothes and I was paranoid that they all would catch me staring just a little too long at Tina in her bikini top and cut off shorts.

"Free show!" I yelled to whoever was listening and lifted the hem of my shirt over my head. I got a couple of wolf whistles and a "Work it white boy!" It was all fun and games watching Tina floating in the water and Kurt and Mercedes playing volleyball on the sand until things took a very dark turn.

The volleyball they had been playing with destroyed the sand castle I was meticulously building. Seriously, I had leaf flags and stick windows and a rock fence and everything. I threatened them with disembowelment to which they replied by carrying me onto the dock and throwing me onto a nearby intertube. I was a good swimmer when I did it on my terms, but I was thrashing in the water for a few seconds before I got my bearings. Luckily, Tina swam by and helped me through the hole in the intertube. That was the first time we actually touched since the break up and I swear I saw Kurt mouth, "You're welcome" before serving the destroyer of my sand castle to Mercedes.

Besides that incident, which in the end I was thankful for (Tina near me in a bikini? Yes please), it was a really fun way to end the summer. The next time we would see each other would be at school. It would be great to see all my friends almost everyday. But that meant seeing Tina and Mike together almost everyday too.

Maybe I could talk my mom into letting me transfer schools.

* * *

A/N 2: Wouldn't Kurt and Artie singing Telephone be epic? Too bad it ain't gonna happen D:


	14. Listen

A/N: We're reaching the end y'all. Just two more chapters after this. This chapter contains spoilers about which students are attending McKinley this upcoming season.

* * *

"Artie. For the last time, it's too late to transfer out of McKinley and Hogwarts isn't real. You can't go there."

"Lies!" I said miserably as my mom drove up to the school.

"I thought you said you were getting over the break up by now."

"That was when I didn't have to see her everyday."

"Just give it time remember? Have a good day sweetie."

"I'll have a good day the day I join the football team," I replied swinging the door shut.

School was as exciting as it ever was. Dodged a slushie facial by quickly wheeling into the elevator, avoided getting my glasses flushed down the toilet with the help of some freshman dude with kinda long blonde hair and had my wheels taped together, but it was only scotch tape so it wasn't that bad this time around.

It was weird not having Tina play Tic Tac Toe with me or draw all over my notebooks making my notes (and in turn hers because she would copy them later) much harder to read but much more interesting. We did still pass notes but it wasn't the same. There weren't anymore inside jokes. Glee Auditions were in a week and we were talking about which songs we were going to choose. I wrote to her that I didn't know, when in reality it was a three-way tie between Gone by NSYNC, Just My Imagination by The Temptations and She's Out of My Life by Michael Jackson. School was over for the day and I went to Mr. Schue to ask which song I should do.

"Wow, Artie, these are all great songs, like really great. But I'd really love to see you showcase your talent as a musician as well. Your guitar playing is excellent and it would be great if you could incorporate that too." Hm. Maybe this wasn't one of Mr. Schue's crazy ideas again because it sounded good. I thanked him and he replied, "No problem. See you at auditions."

"Hey, Mr. Schue, if I get in New Directions again, would it be okay if I sang one of these songs during rehearsal or something?"

"Sure you can. After all, Glee Club is always a good place to express yourself."

I ended up doing Weezer's Perfect Situation in my audition and completely killed the guitar solos. People were allowed to watch auditions this year and I saw almost everyone from last year (Matt was missing and it occurred to me that I hadn't seen him since school ended last year) and a few new faces, like that blonde guy that helped me with my glasses and a tiny girl that had a very big voice (she auditioned before I did and everyone knew Rachel was going to have some competition this year). Mr. Schue smiled at me as I wheeled back into the audience and I even got a couple high fives for once. Mike shot me a dirty look because he knew I was singing the second verse to him. Everyone else gave really good auditions and New Directions 2010-2011 Edition was going to blow everyone out of the water.

The following weeks, Mr. Schue outdid himself and let me perform each of my initial audition song choices in front of everyone. After my renditions of Gone and Just My Imagination, Mr. Schue considered making it a group number for the guys for an upcoming performance. I was met with general applause, but the only person whose opinion mattered the most kept her reaction hidden from behind her long black hair. I thought it was weird that Mike didn't seem as irritated as he had been when during my audition song.

I guess really brought the house down with She's Out Of My Life because I saw some of the girls wipe the corners of their eyes with tissues and even Mr. Schue seemed to get kinda emotional too. I guess it was because he was in love with Ms. Pillsbury (he doesn't do a very good job of hiding it) but she was dating someone else now. Maybe they could feel the emotion I was putting into the song because it was hard keeping it together on my part. Even Michael Jackson couldn't record this song without crying. I took a deep breath and shook my head to get out of the depressed zone. When I looked at Tina, she very pointedly turned her face away from my direction, hiding any kind of emotion she may be having.

"Dude, why are you so sad all the time now? It's kinda bringing everyone down." I looked around at everyone leaving for the day and Finn was right. Everyone seemed glum. Even Sunshine. Hell, even Puck gave me a solemn nod as I saw him send a fleeting glance at Quinn for a split second. "Did your hamster die or something?"

"Did you not pay attention to the lyrics?"

"Actually, I was trying to memorize the new songs Mr. Schue just gave us and I get all confused when try to listen to you and read at the same time. Did you know he wants us to rap? Plus Rachel was wearing this really nice sweater…"

"Okay, I get it Finn. It's just…" I glanced at Tina and Mike, who have been sitting further and further apart in Glee since school started, but they still walked the halls together. "How did you feel when Rachel started going out with Jesse?"

"It was really depressing at first, because like, I had my chance with her and I blew it. Then I wanted to set a chair on fire and throw it at him." I nodded over towards Mike and Tina leaving together and Finn understood. "Dude, you just gotta be happy for her and like hit things when no one's looking. I dunno, things worked out for me and Rachel, but then again that Jesse kid was a jerk and Mike's a pretty cool guy, I've played football with him forever and you know, he's in Glee. He's really awesome. Oh man, I didn't mean it like that.

My expression went from sad to confused to even sadder and now it's disbelief. "Thanks Finn." And I left the choir room singing Yesterday by the Beatles under my breath. To my surprise, Kurt and Mercedes came out of from the nearby stairwell and cornered me by some lockers next to it.

"Okay for real Vanilla Lightning, you've been killin' all your solos lately, but if you sing one more song about how much you miss Tina, I will cut you."

"We're being completely serious Artie. You really need to stop it."

"Tina's been a wreck ever since school started. Mike has been upset because of Matt."

"Quinn and Santana have been freaking out over Cheerios," Kurt continued.

"And you sappin' it up in the choir room does not make anyone feel better. If you want her back, just tell her already. If you wanna be together, be together. Do something instead of makin' all of us miserable every damn day."

"What about Mike?" I asked. Why did they want me to be 'the other man' so much?

"Where the hell have you been? They broke up two weeks ago."

"But I always seem them walking together."

"Well, Mike doesn't exactly have Matt around anymore does he? Tina is his closest friend now." Kurt said obviously annoyed at my ignorance.

"So they're just friends now?"

"Yes. So does that mean you're getting over your deluded drama inducing despondent self and just patch things up with Tina already?" Kurt asked.

"No." I said, making a move to leave this conversation. This was clearly not the answer they were expecting.

"What do you mean 'no'?" Mercedes asked in full on Mama Bear mode.

"If she can't make things work out with Mike, how could she work things out with me?" They looked at me with blank expressions. "He was good for her. She needs someone who can give her anything she wants. I can't be with her because I… I just can't okay? She… We can't be together because I'll end up doing something stupid and… We broke up because I was a jerk and I don't wanna do that again. It was hard enough the first time."

"What do you mean first time?"

I really hate my word vomit tendencies, especially when it happened in front of these two because they never let anything go. So I replied in a low voice, "I acted like a jerk to Tina so she could break up with me and not feel guilty about it." They looked at me like I had just stood up in front of them and started doing the electric slide. "I can't… She… I'm doing this for her own good."

"I can't believe you're pulling a Spider-Man right now," said Kurt rubbing his temple.

"You watched Spider-Man?" Asked Mercedes. To be honest, I'm sort of curious too because Kurt and Marvel superheroes don't exactly mix.

"Tobey Maguire in a body suit," he replied swiftly and got right back onto the subject. "But really Artie?"

"Don't give us any of that stupid noble business alright?"

"It's Tina's decision in the end on who she wants to be with."

"Do you still wanna be with her?" I didn't answer right away. Of course I did. I always will. We all looked at each other for a while in silence, fully knowing what my answer to that question was.

"It doesn't matter what I want. The fact of the matter is I can't be the guy she deserves." I pushed my way past them and slowly made my way home. I felt the same kind of lethargy that I had all summer and then suddenly, I felt my heart leap when I heard Mercedes' voice echo in the nearby stairwell as she asked, "Tina, have you been here this whole time? How much have you heard?"


	15. Back to the Start

Disclaimer: I figured I should do this again. I am not affiliated with Glee or Harry Potter or any other movies/songs/artists mentioned in this and the previous and future chapters. I'm just a fan.

A/N: We're so close to the end and I'm kinda sad about finishing this. I've had this chapter in mind ever since I started writing this fic and it turned out like I wanted it to. I hope y'all enjoy.

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I was damn sure I didn't want to hear Tina's answer so I wheeled faster and faster until I made it out of the school safely and out of breath.

My mind was racing and I immediately regretted every single thing I had ever said and done since this past June. Kurt and Mercedes were right. All this drama was unneeded and I messed up. What the hell was I thinking singing those songs in Glee when I knew I couldn't work things out with her? Ugh. I drive myself crazy. Even now I can't escape songs about how I feel about her, and I can't help but think again, what in the world was I thinking? I went on auto-pilot as I saw my dad pull up into the parking lot and I entered the car because I did not feel like talking to anyone right now. It felt a lot like the first days after Tina and I broke up except I didn't have the luxury of staying in bed for days on end. I had to go to school the next day and face my problems.

To say that next few days were awkward would be a major understatement. Tina barely looked at me. On the other hand, Kurt and Mercedes kept looking at me like my parents when they were trying to tell me to do my chores for the billionth time. It made me feel uncomfortable and guilty and obligated all at the same time. The comments they kept making under their breath during rehearsals were really getting to me.

"What? No solo today Peter Parker?"

"Can't believe you're just gonna sit there and not do anything."

"Oh, just wait Artie. You're in for an interesting week."

"He's not supposed to know anything!"

I was glad to be away from them when we started to practice our latest group number. Mr. Schue put me on the side again so I could play the guitar while everyone else did the choreography. Usually that made me feel a little left out, but nowadays, I was thankful for getting away from everyone else. Things stayed like that for about a week and as it went on, it didn't get any easier. I had decided that day in the hall with Kurt and Mercedes that I would just let things happen the way they're supposed to. I'm done manipulating situations because seriously, it was too tiring and caused more problems than it solved. Just because I made that decision didn't mean I felt any differently about the situation. I still didn't think Tina would ever want me back after everything I'd done both unintentionally and not. That is, until one day at Glee practice.

"Okay everyone, we have group practice in the auditorium the day after tomorrow but first, I understand we have some solo performances to go through…" Mr. Schue started as everyone got comfortable in their seats and I just parked myself somewhere to the side. "Tina has something she wants to share." I had a harsh flashback to when Tina was called down to say that she chose Mike all those months ago. She walked down and handed the sheet music to Brad and started to sing a Colbie Caillat song I wasn't really familiar with because it was slow and sad. I wondered why she chose to sing it until I listened to the lyrics and it all became painfully obvious because no other guy in Glee has eyes as blue as mine. So this is what she felt like when I sang in Glee earlier this year. I never would have thought she'd miss me that much and when she finished, it was all I could do to not look her in the eye as everyone gave her the applause she deserved.

Glee continued with me on auto-pilot again, strumming through the songs and singing background vocals, my mind constantly on Tina's performance a few minutes ago. I was told off a few times by Mr. Schue and Rachel (admittedly, it was more than a few times from her) for not concentrating hard enough and messing up a couple times. Apparently, I was a lost cause because Mr. Schue told me to go over the music again while everyone else practiced harmonies. I scanned over the music lazily and occasionally stole glances at Tina, who caught me three times. Before I could make up my mind to do anything, Glee was over and I was heading home without saying a word to Tina for the eighth day in a row.

Oh damn, girl was giving me a taste of my own medicine. The following day during rehearsal after Rachel and Finn's pop power ballad duet (they really need to expand their horizons), Tina surprised me with another solo. I was familiar with this song especially after having her put the entire album on our, I mean, my iPod and that one night we all spent at Kurt's house making costumes for Glee. She was using irony to enhance her performance, since now she was singing Lady Gaga's Speechless without any hint that she used to have a speech impediment. When she finished, Mr. Schue exclaimed that he wanted to make that the girl's group number to balance the one I'd be doing with the guys. I wondered for a bit whether or not Mr. Schue had ulterior motives for matching us up like that but I forgot those thoughts as Tina caught my eye for the tiniest moment.

The next day at Glee we were in the auditorium like Mr. Schue said we would be. My arms and shoulders were getting a little sore after going through the choreography for the sixth time in a row with no breaks and everyone else seemed a little out of breath also. Mr. Schue let us take a five-minute break before repeating the whole process again, but cut down to three times.

"Great work guys. I know you all are tired, but…" Really Mr. Schue? The auditorium got really stuffy in there at times so almost everyone was lying down on the floor next to the giant fan. I was off to the side in my chair and caught a little breeze and Tina promptly plopped down next to me as graceful as ever. "…We are gonna rock at the Invitationals next week. Rehearsal is over for today, but I want you all to be practicing over the weekend. Have a good one!" Slowly everyone started getting up and leaving, sending tired goodbyes over their shoulders. Soon it was just Tina and I left cooling off in front of the fan. I was about to leave but something in the way the beautiful girl lying down next to me was breathing… something in the way she moves… attracts me like no other lover.

Tina was softly singing along to my unconscious humming of that Beatles song she reminded me of. I stopped humming and for the first time in months, Tina looked at me in the eye the same way she did right before our first kiss. Right before I left her and I frowned at the memory.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"I hate myself." She looked questioningly at me, but didn't ask for me to elaborate. Remembering all the times I shut her out and hurt her, it was hard but I decided to open up. "I was just thinking and… I ruined the memory of our first kiss. I shouldn't have left you like that." I looked down into my hands and heard Tina get up and stoop in front of me. "I'm sorry that I wasn't better." Then I saw her hands entwined in mine and she looked at me, her eyes full of emotion.

"I stayed behind here with you because I have something to tell you…" She said, letting go of my hands and even though they were gloved, I shivered at the loss of warmth. I expected her to start talking, but then Brad came out of nowhere (is he always just around or something?) and started playing a song I remembered learning from the music books Tina and I bought a long time ago. "Just… listen…" She said and she let out a breath and started to sing.

_Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry  
You don't know how lovely you are_

_I had to find you__  
Tell you I need you  
Tell you I've set you apart_

_Tell me your secrets  
And ask me your questions  
Oh, let's go back to the start_

I can't describe how it felt to know she still felt the same way about me as I did about her despite everything that had happened. We maintained eye contact throughout her verses sharing small smiles here and there.

_Running in circles__  
Coming up tails  
Heads on the science apart_

_Nobody said it was easy  
It's such a shame for us to part  
Nobody said it was easy  
No one ever said it would be this hard_

_Oh take me back to the start_

By the time she got to the chorus, she started to cry so I wheeled in front of her quietly. I pulled her into my lap and took over singing the second verse as she cried into my shoulder. I rubbed circles into her back as I sang back to her.

_I was just guessing  
At numbers and figures  
Pulling the puzzles apart_

_Questions of sciencw  
Science and progress  
Do not speak as loud as my heart_

This whole break up thing was just me over analyzing everything, guessing at what went wrong and coming up with a logical answer. With every decision I made with my mind, every step of the way, my heart protested. Now, I know better, there isn't any logic when it comes to love and that's what we have. We never said it to each other, but we both know that's what this is.

_Oh tell me you love me  
Come back and haunt me  
Oh and I rush to the start_

She rested her head on my shoulder as she ran her hand along my jaw and I pressed my lips to the heel of her palm. I took that hand in mine, placed it over my chest and continued to sing.

_Running in circles  
Chasing our tails  
Coming back as we are_

_Nobody said it was easy  
Oh, it's such a shame for us to part  
Nobody said it was easy  
No one ever said it would be so hard_

_I'm going back to the start_

As we sang the last part of the song together, our voices meshing together in perfect harmony, I knew that this was it. She was right, it wasn't going to be easy and we'd have to work hard, but having her in my arms, breathing in her scent, it was worth it. I was never letting go of her again. I knew she felt the same as she looked at me just after we stopped singing. We didn't say anything but we knew that things were going to be okay.

I felt it in the way we kissed and I'm sure she did too.

"I love you," I whispered against her lips, my eyes closed.

"I know," she replied and I could feel her smile against mine. Leave it to us to bring up Star Wars in a moment like this. "I love you too."


	16. Nobody Said It Was Easy

A/N: This is it y'all. I put in some references to the previous chapters which, I thought, was a good way to end this. I didn't want to end on a grand moment in the actual story, but this Author's Note will.

This was just a little idea I had in my mind back in July when I found out about Artie and Tina. Over a month and 16 chapters later, it's over. It's been a crazy journey because I have never written a Glee fanfiction before, never written a multi-chapter fic before and never had it open for the public to read. I'm extremely grateful for all of you who have been reading and reviewing, especially Average Everyday Sane Psycho who took the time to review every single chapter. You're awesome! All of you are amazing and thank you for spending part of your day reading what I assumed to just a story I wanted to write. I would love to hear your feedback and hopefully, I'll be back sometime with another story to tell. :D

* * *

"Ahem."

I pulled away from Tina confused because everything was going to perfectly and for once it wasn't me who ruined it. It seems that in our, er, excitement, we forgot Brad was there. He noisily scooted off of the piano bench and walked off stage, his shoes loudly echoing in the now almost silent auditorium. Seeing Brad leave in a huff caused Tina and I to break out laughing at the silliness of the situation. I linked my hands together behind her back to keep her from falling off my lap. Our laughter subsided and she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pressed her forehead against mine, closing her eyes. I closed mine too and resumed rubbing circles in the small of her back. How was I so stupid enough to let her go?

"What now?" She whispered to me so softly that I almost missed it.

"I think we should talk." I whispered back before we unwrapped ourselves from each other. She climbed off of my lap, giving me a swift kiss in the process. "Do you wanna talk here or…?"

"Nah, not here. Brad might come back and ban us from the auditorium," she replied gathering her things and mine from offstage. "Is there any where you had in mind?"

"Anywhere you want," I replied, letting her go ahead of me as we left the auditorium. I let her lead the way, "So where are we going?"

"It's a surprise," she replied, looking back at me with a small smile on her face as we reached the school's double door entrance. I wheeled over, held the door open for her and motioned for her to go through first. It felt really good to do that. I saw my dad parked in the parking lot and I went over to tell him that he could just go home without me. He glanced over my shoulder to see Tina standing there and he gave me a grin and said, "Go get her champ." He drove away and I laughed at Tina when she jumped up when my dad scared her by honking the horn. She then retaliated by poking me in the back of the head. It all felt really normal and casual and right… like these past few months didn't happen at all. But when she didn't put her hand on the back of my neck like she did before, I was reminded that it did happen. She walked a little in front of me, which was needed. I had to think about what I wanted to say to her and I'm sure she had to also. The wind was starting to pick up a little because autumn was well on its way, but otherwise the weather was still nice.

"Seriously Tee, where are we going?"

"Where else do we go?" She said, pointing in the direction of the street sign. I had to squint a little because my eyesight was pretty bad but from what I could make out, we were headed to the park. It was the right place for us to start over again. We continued our journey in silence that was broken by me asking her to help push me up a small hill. I thanked her when she stepped behind me and wheeled me up like a pro. I slowly wheelied down it, leaving only a small block left until the park. "I've never told you this, but I think it's really cool when you do that, but it's also a little scary," Tina confessed when we started moving at the same pace. I laughed, but was reminded of something.

"Speaking of things we've never told each other…" I talked to her about the things I read in 'Rolling Through Life,' telling her my concerns about my condition and how it would affect our relationship. "I like it when you do some stuff for me, like just now with the hill thing and the massages, but, I want you to know that I can do things on my own."

"I know, but I just wanna help…"

"Tee, I know. And I really appreciate it, but it makes me feel like I can't do anything sometimes..." She opened her mouth to protest, so I went on before she could say anything. "And I know you don't mean it and I don't mean to feel that way, but it happens. And I'll try to stop snapping at you when that happens."

"Okay… so what should we do about that?"

"Just ask if I need help and if I don't, let me do it." I answered, looking at her for approval.

"I can do that." She said surely. "And that whole asserting your masculinity thing you talked about earlier… I get it. But it's not an excuse for objectifying me."

"I know. I'm working on it."

"So I'll try not to baby you and you'll try not to be a jerk about it."

"Sounds like a plan," and I held my pinky out and she linked hers with mine as we made a promise to be better. We crossed our hearts also for good measure.

"There's our spot," she said pointing to a familiar grassy spot where we once had an ice cream war and other memories lingered. We made our way and got into our usual positions of me lying on the grass and her right next to me, her head resting on my chest.

"I've missed you."

"Me too," I said back. "So how much did you hear a couple weeks ago with me and the divas in the hallway?"

"Pretty much everything after Mercedes called you Vanilla Lightning," she replied laughing at the nickname.

"Oh so pretty much everything," I said back. "I really am sorry. For everything. For leaving you on our first date, objectifying you, yelling at you, ignoring you, being a jerk… just…"

"Artie..." She said lifting her head up from off of my chest and propping herself up on her right elbow. "I've forgiven you for all of that and you need to stop beating yourself up over these things."

"But… I just don't think you deserve someone who messes up so much," I sighed, burying my face with both of my hands. Tina held both of my wrists and pulled my hands away so she could look me in the eyes.

"Who was the one who actually took the time to listen to me when I tried to tell Finn what I was good at? Who gave me enough confidence to dance in front of the whole school? Who was first one who congratulated me on getting a solo? You. I still have the petals from a bouquet of my favorite flowers you gave me after that performance. They're pressed in that Rock n Roll Encyclopedia you left at my house. You even took time out of your own rehearsals to help me during that Lady Gaga week."

"I know…. But…"

"Those nights after we all cried in Mr. Schue's apartment and after we lost at Regionals, you were the one who made me feel like everything was gonna be okay." She ran one of her hands along the side of my face, wiping away my doubts.

"Any good friend or boyfriend would have done that…" I said, finally addressing a topic we never addressed before. "I bet Mike would have." She looked at me in disbelief. "Wasn't he good to you?"

"I'm not gonna lie, he was a perfect gentleman. He was nice, chivalrous… a real knight in shining armor kind of guy." I clenched my jaw and waited for more praise about him. But to my surprise, they didn't come. "But he didn't follow up my movie quotes. He didn't know who I dressed up as at that Harry Potter thing. We didn't have ice cream wars, or trade pizza toppings, or make forts." She said, making me shiver as she traced patterns along my ribcage. She saw that I was about to protest again and continued, "You need to give yourself more credit. You're awesome."

"He was your chance for the normal life I could never give you," I said, propping myself on my elbows, looking at her in the eyes.

"I don't want normal, Artie." She replied. "I could walk and run and jump and dance with Mike… but with you…" she said, smiling that shy, small smile that always got to me. "Artie, with you, I feel like I could fly." I couldn't find the words to explain how much it meant that she felt the same way about me. I lifted her chin with one hand and brought her lips to meet mine. I kissed her slowly and deliberately, conveying all that I couldn't say into that kiss and I was met with equal passion. We parted for air and I lied back down on the ground and Tina nuzzled into my chest.

"Who needs a knight in shining armor when you got one in a sweater vest?" I joked, running my hand up and down her arm.

"A bird sweater vest," Tina added, laughing. "It was good for us to have this talk… I wish we had it earlier."

"Yeah, me too. But at least we know now."

"And knowing is half the battle."

"Mhmm… the other half… it'll be tough. But we can do it right?"

"Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting…" She replied smiling up at me.

"We can work it out," I finished and she repeated. Silence overcame us and we just lied on the ground, enjoying the feeling of each other. I suddenly felt a shiver go through me that had nothing to do with the way she was still tracing patterns on my ribcage. "It's getting kinda cold, wanna head someplace else?"

"Okay. Your place or mine?"

"Yours okay? I think my parents have the Himmelfarbs over for dinner, which means we'd probably have to spend the entire night in my room being anti-social." I told her as I transferred myself back onto my chair.

"You're actually rejecting the idea of us spending an entire night in your room?"

"Yes, I am. What do you think I am? Some kinda pig?" I said in mock indignation. "Your place is nearer anyway. Friday night movie?"

"What else do we do?" She replied and I smiled at her. "Need a push?" Tina asked me as I struggled a little bit to wheel myself from the grass back onto the concrete path. I nodded to her and she helped me up and I told her if she wanted to keep pushing, she could. As she led us out of the park, towards her house, I got our iPod out of my bag and handed her an earpiece. Six and a half songs later, we arrived at her place and settled into our old routine of me getting snacks in the kitchen and her picking out a movie.

"Hell yes!" I exclaimed finding a packet of kettle corn waiting to be popped.

"I'm guessing that you found the kettle corn," I heard Tina shout back from her living room. After a few minutes, I wheeled into the living room, placing the bowl of kettle corn on the coffee table before transferring myself onto to the couch. Tina snuggled into my side and started the movie. The opening credits started rolling and she asked, "… Do you think we're headed back into this too fast? We're acting like it never happened."

I couldn't deny that she was right. Pausing the movie, I turned to her and scratched the back of my head. "To be honest, I don't really know what we're supposed to do. Do you?" She shook her head. "We can take things slow if you want… Or we can keep on going like this…"

"What do you want to…" Tina and I said at the same time, causing us to laugh nervously.

"I don't know what to do…" I confessed.

"I don't know either…" Tina said softly, hugging herself and tugging at the hemline of her shirt. "I just know that I wanna be with you." I leaned over and took her soft tiny hands in my rough calloused ones. I had taken off my gloves earlier and she removed her arm wamers, leaving nothing between us as we held hands.

"Y'know… what I said in the auditorium earlier today… It's true." I told her, rubbing circles in the palms of her hands with my thumbs. "And even though we have no idea what we're doing right now, we just need to give it time." I said remembering my mom's advice, which turned out to be really helpful. "I know this'll work out…because…" I took a deep breath out of nervousness because this was the first time for me to say this looking directly at her. My stupid head had the tiniest doubt she only said it back in the heat of the moment, though I knew in my heart she didn't. "… I love you." I leaned in to kiss her softly.

"I know." She replied.

"Are you really going to say that after every time I tell you that I love you? 'Cause if you are, girl you trippin'."

"No!" She said laughing, giving me a playful shove. I laughed too and listened to her when she continued. "I was just saying that I also know that this'll work out because I love you too…" She smiled shyly and I kissed her again. She deepened the kiss and after a few minutes, she pulled away. "Maybe we're thinking too hard about this," she laughed.

"Maybe we are." I said joining her laugh. "We're so complicated," I sighed. "Next time we have drama, can we just fight over a solo or something?" I joked, knowing that I'd give her the solo without skipping a beat.

"Maybe we should just watch the movie…" She un-paused Little Shop of Horrors on her DVD player. "Eat some kettle corn." She shoved some in my mouth, which I happily munched on. "And just… take things as they come... y'know, give it time." She curled up beside me again and I wrapped my arm around her.

"We got this right?' I asked her.

"We totally got this," she replied, lifting her clenched hand up and we fist bumped.

Then we made out.

We worked up an appetite so afterwards we ordered pizza. The kettle corn had gone from movie snack to weapon, because while waiting for the food to come, Tina thought it would be funny to put some kernels down the collar of my shirt. I in turn thought it would be funny to throw some at her. We were wrong. It was hilarious. What is it with us with food wars? Especially when we both love eating so much. The doorbell rang and we helped clean each other off quickly. She got out the paper towels and sodas as I wheeled up to the front door to pay for our dinner. As we started the movie over again (we were otherwise occupied the first time around), we traded pizza toppings.

I knew that even though some things were gonna have to change and we'll have difficulties sometimes, but we'll always have simple things like this to make us happy. If you had told me this morning that I'd be here with Tina like this, I wouldn't have believed you.

"Artie, what's up? You have a funny look on your face."

"Nothing… I'm just… really happy right now," I said, pouring Parmesan cheese on my pizza.

"Me too," she smiled before taking a bite out of her red pepper flake covered slice.

I reached over and covered her hand in mine.

Today was perfect. Tomorrow, who knows? Nobody said it was easy.


End file.
